Not exactly what Homeland Security says it is…

My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists

When Polish student Michael Gromek, 19, went to America on a student exchange, he found himself trapped in a host family of Christian fundamentalists. What followed was a six-month hell of dawn church visits and sex education talks as his new family tried to banish the devil from his soul.

Welcome to America.  You devil worshiping heathen foreigner you…

Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents hadn’t had sex for the last 17 years because — so they told me — they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart.

Luckily the kid was able to get himself into another family that wasn’t batshit crazy.  I’m torn about all this though.  On the one hand, this is not the image of America I want other nations to get.  On the other, this is exactly why our political process here in America and why our foreign policy, is such a crazy mess and I’m not sure the rest of the world really understands that.  Maybe they all need to be placed with batshit crazy fundamentalists.  They need to understand our crazies.  They need to know what they’re dealing with.