Via Witchvox comes an editorial from the North County Gazette, Serving New York State and Beyond that touches on the recent settlement reached with the Veterans Administration that will allow the use of the Pentacle on gravestones. It also discusses a story that I'd missed:
A few days earlier, on April 17, a religious group called Summum won a key round in its fight to place monuments in Utah city parks alongside Ten Commandments monuments. (Summum, founded some 30 years ago, is difficult to summarize, but the group describes its beliefs as consistent with Gnostic Christianity.)
. . .
In the Summum case, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an injunction that would allow Summum to place its Seven Aphorisms in a public park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The park already has a Ten Commandments monument donated years ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Summum had argued that if the city allows one group to put up a monument in a public park, it must allow other groups the same opportunity.
Pleasant Grove officials could have avoided the problem entirely by not allowing any private groups to put up monuments in the park. Instead they decided that the Ten Commandments monument should be treated differently because of "historical relevance" to the city.
The court unanimously rejected that argument and ruled that "the city may further its interest in promoting its own history by a number of means, but not by restricting access to a public forum traditionally committed to public debate and the free exchange of ideas."
The story reminds me of the one this past December in southern Virginia where local Pagans took advantage of a 4th Circuit opinion that required the local school board to send home notices about xian bible classes. The Pagans sent home notices about a Yule program and the xian parents went ballistic. The message, though, was the same as in Utah. If you're going to allow some religions to have access to government-run spaces and services, you're going to have to allow all religions -- even the ones that most Americans don't like, such as Wicca or Islam -- the same access.
Or, you could act like grown-ups and respect the separation of church and state that the Founders wrote into the Constitution precisely to avoid this sort of nonsense over which religions get favored treatment.
Now, who's up for a monument with the Wiccan Rede for that nice little park in Utah? I'd contribute.
You wanna bet if we built a faerie cairn there it would be decorated with totems and feathers and beads in two days flat?
ReplyDeleteI'd bet that 10 Commandments marker is one from the promo that deMille did for the movie - the Elks were involved. I think we've got one in a park somewhere in Santa Fe.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd donate to a WIccan Rede plaque too!
merry May, Hecate
The South African Pagan Rights Alliance is currently in dialogue with the government concerning their proposal to grant public holidays on religious days other than Christian.
ReplyDelete(We have Easter and Christmas on our public holiday calendar right now, a definite bias).
While we applaud the thought behind this proposal, we're trying to get our officials to recognise that you either favour all religions represented in this country, or none of them.
We have therefore asked for the Pagan holiday of Beltane (celebrated over here at then start of November!) to be considered for inclusion on the public holiday roster.
So far, they're not getting the gentle irony, and are fielding requests from Siks, Sufis, Buddhists and Rastafarians!
Love,
Terri in Joburg
Certainly if 'faeries' did chose to settle themselves in any park, their presence would be recognized and generally ignored and advoided except for leaving gifts. And a fake faerie cairn would be treated very much the same, without probably the caution.
ReplyDeleteWhat we confuses me is" if we built a faerie cairn"
when obviously we can't. A faerie cairn built by humans belongs in disney land.
Peoples reaction it is true would be to leave gifts, but there is no reason to think that any other group woul take notice and good reason to hope didn't
This may seem petty but it speaks to my confusion about wicca.
You claim to honor, to have a relationship with , for example, 'faeries' but take a strange possessive tone that to me denies belief in their existence.