Sorry the post took a bit longer.
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Aspid, what you described is exactly what I deal with everyday, and while the majority of the place may be closed-minded, I am quite certain you should be able to find some more progressive people. It may take sometime, but they exist there somewhere. But, yeah in small places it does tend to be generally close-minded which is really aggravating sometimes, but you should be able to get used to it. Hopefully.