Gun, Bible, Koran and bubble perm

I've written before about what a contradictory place Texas is, but it's still eye-opening for us lily-livered Europeans to see large billboards in the heart of nice-as-apple-pie suburban Collin County advertising a gun show (particularly when the ad in question is only a few blocks away from a school of Islamic Sufism!). Collin County is where the North Dallas sprawl finally meets the Texas countryside (surprisingly colourful in fall) and is also home to one of the 10 largest churches in the US, a Southern Baptist congregation called Prestonwood that boasts more than 24,000 members. In fact, according to a recent Time magazine article, five of the 10 largest churches in the US are in Texas and four of those are in the D-FW metroplex. And yet, and yet, despite the ignorant, ugly views of many of self-righteous Texan Christians, in Dallas it is still possible for a lesbian couple and their son to attend a mainstream church and for right-thinking church leaders to choose to lose their biggest benefactors rather than bow to pressure to retract sermons in favour of gay marriage. How could it be otherwise in the city that gave the world Toni & Guy?