#Truly Vox decided he was an atheist at the age of eight

[voxiiferous]

Atheism, Progressive Politics, NYU, Greenwich Village, and the Whole "Being Gay" Thing

Does this seem like a lot of topics for one hc??? Then you would be right but they all relate in fun and interesting ways!

Vox's mother was religious, and as a result, as a small child he was brought to the little community church each week. He didn't pay much attention to what was being said, and mostly used the time to read the Bible shoved in the back of the pews in front. Not because he particularly wanted to read it, but because his mother wouldn't let him bring any books, and he wanted to practice reading.

This changed when he was eight, when he started to actually listen to what was being said. He came to several realizations all rather simultaneously: he liked men, that wasn't allowed (or else he's have seen it), and that the whole idea behind God and the church seemed a lot like the fairy stories his mother told him, and thus, was not to be taken seriously.

His mother didn't particularly like this, but Vox was a stubborn child, and preferred staying home working on his little projects and reading his books. (His mother lost the argument when it came to getting him to go to Church, save for holy days and holidays).

This young break from the church was the start of his more progressive ideas about the world, but it wouldn't be until university when those would come into sharper focus.

Vox left Pennsylvania, and didn't look back in 1933, when he began attending NYU. Even now, when he thinks back to the time, it is as the buildings dominating the area around Washington Square Park; as much a part of the city as the restaurants and clubs that surrounded it, and himself of one of a nameless fifty-thousand other students.

He lived in the dorms, which only further ensconced him in New York, as compared to something like Columbia on the other side of Manhattan which was comparatively insular. NYU is located in Greenwich Village, a part of the city known for being quite liberal, even for New York, haven to the arts and in many cases, many minorities.

And it was here that he first began to consider his politics in a much more concrete way.

Perhaps, had he lived there as other denizen of Greenwich Village, he might have turned out a very different person, but the problem with being a student, first and foremost, was knowing that if NYU found out he was gay, there was a not insignificant chance of being expelled. He'd heard of other schools that were, or that had, purged large number of their gay students, and academia, like show-business is full of people who would give him up if it would advance them.

Vox's problem with his own sexuality has never come as a result of internalized homophobia-- no, the problem was a simple fear of consequences that only became more entrenched and dangerous as time went on, and he became more public.

But, his own sexuality aside, he saw a lot of things that would have been unthinkable in small-town Pennsylvania. He lived, for a while, approximately a ten minute walk from the Cafe Society-- America's first, and for a long time, only de-segregated club. It was close to NYU, especially when compared to some of the famous locations like the Cotton Club, which were on the other side of Manhattan up in Harlem.

While after he graduated, he moved out of the dorms in Greenwich Village to mid-town Manhattan, the experiences of it permanently shaped a lot of his thoughts and opinions.