Infidels of Every Denomination

Good news from down under!

From Religion News Blog comes a piece from The Australian: Victoria has passed legislation overturning the Vagrancy Act, which outlawed witchcraft and occult practices like "fortune-telling".

It's a blip on the radar for some Australian witches and pagans:

"In some ways it's irrelevant," said Caroline Tully of Melbourne, who says she's a witch. "I've only known one person to be busted in the past 20 years, and that was some woman in Sydney for fortune-telling."

(from the article in The Australian)

but the wider importance of the action was summed up by Gavin Andrew, Victorian coordinator for the Pagan Awareness Network Inc.:

Mr. Andrew said the repeal would prevent people who vilified witches and pagans from claiming the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act did not apply because it only protected lawful religions.

Here in America we face many of those same issues, as Wiccan and Pagan clergy seek legal legitimacy to perform weddings or establish churches-- or even as parents occasionally find themselves forced to fight for the right to raise their children in the path they themselves follow, as in this case. Antiquated "fortune telling" laws are one of the weapons that get pulled out to "prove" that those paths are not legitimate religions.

It may seem like repealing these laws is on par with overturning a law that says you aren't allowed to give your donkey whisky on Sundays (and to be sure, I personally find those laws about as valid), but every time one does get overturned, it makes it just a little easier for Wiccans and Pagans to get taken seriously and given the same legitimacy as any mainstream religion.

(I will note, however, that this article was still filed in The Australian under "World Wide Weird". Not that I especially mind being thought of as weird, but clearly we have a ways to go before we're no longer lumped in with "Diving Pig To Set World Record".)

Towards a Religious Left?

This article in SFGate.com talks about a "Spiritual Activism" conference intended to mobilize liberal political activists who consider themselves spiritual.

The concept of a "Spiritual Left" is an interesting one, although it poses some problems. I do think it's a necessary subject to address; the last elections and the months since then left a lot of liberal and left-leaning folks angry at how the neocons usurped the language of spirituality for ultra-right-wing purposes. Additionally, the way that "secular liberal" got thrown around like a slur was offensive both to genuinely secular liberals who were being labeled treasonous and treated like they are inferior to "people of faith", and to liberals of various spiritual stripes who were essentially being accused of not "really" being faithful or whose religious choices were being dismissed as irrelevant.

Welcome!

Glad you found us! "Infidels" is a group blog primarily dedicated to watchdogging separation of church and state issues, religious minority rights, and religion/spirituality in the news.

Those of us writing here are some combination of progressive, pagan, left-leaning, neo-hippie opinionated screwheads. We find no contradiction in believing both that there should be a strong separation of church and state, AND that liberals/lefties can be spiritual. We don't think that any one religion gets to have the corner on the market on "strong morals". We object to the right-wing notion that being a Christian is a prerequisite to being a patriot.

We've still got some construction going on here, and we'll be evolving the design, layout, and features of this blog in the coming weeks. Please excuse the dust, and thanks for coming by!