Not uncommon. But the Midwest isn’t necessarily an oasis. In the Milwaukee diocese, 135 priests signed a document opposing traditional marriage.
I never could understand how anything east of the Mississippi could be called the midwest. I consider the west to start at about Wichita KS and maybe the line is a bit further east as you travel south so that most of Oklahoma and Texas could be considered west. But I’m totally midwestern here in KCMO.