Can anyone point me to any actual persecution or mass discrimination of Catholics in the US today?

[ButterflyBlood]

146. It's more of a response to the claim that what we see on DU is some type of modern day Know Nothing

When in fact that type of attitude is mostly dead. Who are the anti-Catholic "bigots"? Nativists or right wing fundamentalists? No in most cases these are people who were deeply hurt by the church.

I was deeply hurt by the church. (To clarify before I say the rest of this, no I was not molested or sexually abused in any way.) In my teenage years I fucking HATED that organization. I wanted it to burn. It was the most filthy and disgusting organization on the planet to me, nothing but evil and rotten to the core. The reasons for this also shaped my liberal philosophy and modern day views. But I couldn't comprehend remaining in that organization. The thought just sickened me. I actually sometimes had dreams about committing arson to the cathedral I was confirmed in which weren't nightmares, they almost felt like some type of subconscious wish fulfillment. I wanted to renounce all even nominal affiliation with it. I refused to identify as a "lapsed Catholic" or "non-practicing Catholic". If I ever identified with some church on a nominal level, it was the Lutheran other side of my family, of which I found to be generally well intended and benign even if somewhat out of touch with me. I wouldn't even tell people in college I was raised Catholic because the thought of even a nominal identification or acknowledgement sickened me so much.

But if I hadn't been raised Catholic, none of that would've happened, and none of those feelings would've existed.