Infidels of Every Denomination

A Witches' Brew of Bad Arguments

Reading the Slate article "Witches' Brew At Winter Solstice: How Wiccans Do Themselves In" by Mark Oppenheimer, I actually found myself checking the date it was published. Surely this was written in, say, 1987 and re-published to fill in for a missed deadline? But no, there it is, today's date.

The only other conclusion I can draw is that the majority of the research he did in the Wiccan community consisted of visiting AOL chatrooms full of eager newbies and looking for "Never again the Burning Times" t-shirts on CafePress.

Not Over Yet?

Brief article following up on the Darla Wynne case from Great Falls, SC-- the ACLU asked the state Attorney General to offer some guidance to local government about what is or isn't legal in a public invocation. His response?

Attorney General Henry McMaster says he will not tell local governments in South Carolina how they can pray before their meetings.

...

McMaster sided with Great Falls and says his office could be involved in further litigation on the issue. [emphases mine]

Greaaaat. Well, we'll keep watching to see how that works out for you, dude.

More on Pagan Veterans Headstones

I wrote here about the Pagan Veterans Headstone Campaign and the now-almost-10-year struggle to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the Wiccan pentacle as one of the religious symbols they will place on veterans' headstones.

This article is about a retired Navy guy who actually works for Veterans Affairs, who is Wiccan and whose son (also Wiccan) is currently serving as a medic in Iraq. He's trying to get the pentacle approved too, and even HE'S getting stonewalled.

What's interesting is that VA isn't specifically saying no-- they just keep finding excuses not to answer the question at all (usually "we're updating guidelines"). Most likely, they're smart enough to know that a hard "no" would precipitate a lawsuit and a lot of bad PR (and in a time of war, would YOU want to be the one accused of not honoring fallen soldiers?), whereas just stalling gives them a harder-to-fight soft "no" plus the out that the families of the deceased are free to order no symbol and then have the pentacle added at their own expense. (But-- you have to go asking about that, because the official page says that you can't add anything except "approved emblems of belief".)

You have to wonder if there isn't some lifetimer who's relatively high placed in Memorial Affairs who just really has it in for Wicca in particular-- not as high as the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, which is a position that's changed hands pretty frequently, although it's interesting that the last person to hold it is the brother of a former ambassador to the Vatican and RNC hotshot. Considering that the DOD recognizes Wicca as a legitimate religion classed under "natural religions", the foot-dragging on the part of Veterans Affairs seems to me to suggest that there's specifically someone there who thinks their worldview is being offended by the existence of Wicca. (On a side note, great analysis here on Religious Tolerance.org of an anti-Wicca-in-the-military paper.)

Quoth the director of communications for the National Cemetary Administration:

Alford, with the National Cemetery Administration, said no emblems are being approved currently, because policies are being updated. Groups, including the Wiccans, will have to reapply under new guidelines, to be announced soon. "We want people to prove that there is a viable organization. ... We're not going to willy-nilly approve emblems until there is a need."

You mean like, a war? I mean, if the existing deceased Wiccan veterans whose families want the pentacle aren't good enough for you...

Asked about the long years of requests, she said the Wiccan groups started out with "a very scattered writing campaign. ... They never sent in an application from the head of the organization speaking for the Wiccans."

Pray tell, who is the head of Hinduism? How about Atheism? How about Judaism? See, this all gets into a big messy debate about what constitutes a religion, and you just can't fit all that into a neat government definition without the government setting criteria for what "counts" as a religion, which really isn't the place of government, so tell me why it's such a problem to "willy-nilly" add requested emblems to the catalog...?

Sometimes, it's enough to make you want to beat your head against a wall.

Update: Some Good News

Sometimes, the system works and reasonable people do the right thing.

Darla Wynne, the Wiccan priestess who sued the town of Great Falls, SC when they refused to stop praying to Jesus at the start of public meetings, has won her lawsuit. The town has been ordered to pay $53k (reduced from the original $65k) for Ms. Wynne's legal fees, incurred when the town refused to accept the initial ruling against them and decided to go for the longer and more expensive fight. Kudos to Ms. Wynne, who has bravely refused to back down despite threats, hostility, the murder of one of her pets, and the town's attempt to bully her into silence by ratcheting up the legal fees with the protracted fight.

And in other renews-my-faith-in-humanity news, the mayor of Ramah, CO has issued an apology to Secret Garden Coven on behalf of the town board, saying that the board had no business interfering with the coven's plans for a Samhain festival at the local American Legion hall. It's heartening also to read that some of the other board members and residents of the tiny town had no problem with the festival and thought that the town government shouldn't be involved in it, even though the local nutjob who was one of those fighting the festival the hardest is still trying her best to whip up anti-pagan furor in the area.

We need all the news like this that we can get, especially in light of bigots like this one who can't decide if gay conventions or Pagan Pride days are more responsible for Katrina. Oh, the choices!

RIP

Artist, feminist, activist, and matriarch of the Goddess movement Monica Sjoo died of cancer back on August 8th, so I'm not quite sure why The Guardian is only running an obit article now. However, it's a very nice overview of the life and work of this fascinating and powerful woman.

We have also lost this week a remarkable, courageous man with the death of Simon Wiesenthal. An indefatiguable Nazi hunter, I have a personal profound respect for his insistence that the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust deserved to be remembered and honored (my grandfather, who survived the camps, is in this number), and he believed that each individual has the responsibility to guard against the rise of neo-Nazi or fascist regimes. Wise thoughts for these times, indeed.

The world is poorer for their loss, but richer for their lives.

Happy Birthday Autumn!

My personal calendar of holidays observed is, you might say, eclectic. I was definitely influenced as a baby-pagan by the Wiccan wheel of the year (Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lammas, Mabon), but having always been more of a mystic wanderer and eclectic than a die-hard adherent to any one path, I didn't feel a need to celebrate all of them. I honor Diwali and the Day of the Dead alongside Samhain; I still essentially celebrate Christmas because it's a family holiday; Valentine's Day has a special place alongside Rosalia and the Inebriety of Hathor in my heart; and as an American Pagan, Independence Day does have a deeply spiritual side for me. When I learned somewhere that many tribes of Rom tend to adopt the holidays of the cultures they travel through as it feels meaningful to them, I completely understood that. (It doesn't hurt that I'm glad of any excuse for a party!)

The autumn equinox, also called Mabon or Harvest Home by some modern Pagan traditions, has always been meaningful to me on a rather instinctual level. It affected me before I was even Pagan, and I cherish it in a way I can't really describe, one that has little to do with established Pagan tradition and much more to do with a wordless inner state.

The celebration of the equinox in many cultures and religions around the world centers on the conclusion of the harvest, the gathering of the grapes for wine, the preparation for winter, in some cases (as in Japan) the honoring of the dead. It is the dawning of the sun in Libra (my birth sign-- maybe that's what draws me!), the balance of light and dark following the first harvests of the sun in Virgo the grain maiden. Given that few of us in modern Western culture do any serious farming outside of perhaps tending a small garden, most modern Pagan tradition around the autumn equinox is symbolic-- the pause in labor to celebrate accomplishments and give thanks for the year's "yield" be it financial, artistic, domestic, industrial. Because Samhain is widely recognized as the Pagan new year, the equinox calls for introspection, assessment, the tying-up of loose ends. (See also The Wildhunt Blog for a roundup of commentary on Equinox and its meanings and traditions.)

Avalon Cares

I wanted to take a moment to highlight the efforts of an organization (mentioned here in one of Siren's recent posts) that is doing fundraising and relief work for Katrina victims: Avalon Cares

What's noteworthy about this group is that they are a Pagan charity (the charitable arm of Officers of Avalon, Inc., an organization of Pagan police officers and other emergency services professionals). Pagans on the whole tend to be exceptionally socially and politically active and generous with their time and resources to many causes, but we also tend to be involved with established secular organizations for those things. It's relatively rare to see a specifically Pagan charity like this, not because we don't do the work, but because we are mostly scattered through other non-religious organizations. However, it's a joy to see this group succeeding in part because groups like these make it easier to show how involved Pagans are in the world around us.

Avalon Cares has done some terrific work, raising $11,000 to date for Katrina relief and with a number of OoA members working directly in the affected areas. An important thing to note is that ALL money raised for this cause will go to the victims-- none of it will go to organizational costs.

It's a legitimate charity and a great place to donate if you are Pagan or Pagan-friendly.

Rocky Mountain Low

I think Chas S. Clifton's friend had it right when she said, "Doesn't it seem that Crazy Season is starting a little early this year?"

For those readers who are unfamiliar with Paganism and Wicca, every year those of us who are practitioners look forward to the Halloween season with a mix of enthusiasm and dread. Enthusiasm, because Samhain is one of the biggest across-the-board holidays (in my experience at least) for pagan/witchy types-- I've heard casual adherents referred to as "Samhain and Beltane Pagans"-- and there tend to be an explosion of celebrations especially in urban areas, ranging from Witches' Balls and masquerades with rituals at nightclubs, to more private ordeal or healing rites, to very intimate and quiet house blessings and dumb suppers to remember the dead. Some groups incorporate elements of Mexican Day of the Dead festivals, and this year, Hinduism's Diwali falls on Nov. 1st as well. It's a deeply meaningful and intensely celebratory time for many of us.

And dread, because with the approach of Halloween comes the annual running of the bullshit-- the gag-worthy media "lifestyle" profiles and hushed-toned melodramatic television specials claiming to answer the question, "is witchcraft REAL?!" and to unmask the great spooky secrets of Halloween, in which they dig up the weirdest, most outre goth-looking Wiccan witch they can book (Laurie Cabot is a favorite) to try to explain witchcraft to the masses. (I'm pretty outre and goth looking myself much of the time-- my objection is purely to the stupid sensationalism of it, like the media is some kind of Jane Goodall trying to communicate with the primitive punk-pagans.) And then you have the churches and "family" groups bitching about local Samhain festivals, some more bizarrely than others. And don't even get me started on the annual debate over whether the stereotypical green, warty, pointy-hatted witch/hag icon of Halloween is the Pagan equivalent of pickaninny art.

In any case, it IS pretty early for Samhain madness to descend, which is perhaps the only thing I found really surprising about this article. Apparently, in a very small town area of Colorado, a woman named Jerusha Doucette-Johnson rented the American Legion hall in the tiny town of Ramah on behalf of her group, Secret Garden Coven, to hold a Samhain festival as a fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. And another woman, Annette Manchego, along with others including Baptist minister Rev. Tim Tucker, is trying desperately to oppose it-- collecting signatures on a petition, threatening to stage a protest, complaining to local officials. Manchego's objection?

“We have vulnerable young people that don’t need this put upon them,” she said. “The festival is a pulling to get people in. Then they can work with the devil himself, which they worship. It is powerful, believe me. They can brainwash you, and before you know it, you’re staying for the midnight ritual.”

All together now: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE **CHILDREN**?!?!

If These 10 Commandments Were Posted In Courtrooms, I Could Totally Deal

If Coyote had 10 Commandments

My favorite, I think:

V. Thou Shalt Not Eat Poisoned Bait. If You Do, Don't Come Whining To Me About It, Because I Am Very Unlikely To Care. Once It Is In Your Mouth, It Is Your Problem, Not Mine.

(ok, # 10 is really the best, but you should go read it for yourself.)

Military Pagans

Came across this article about the spiritual life of military personnel at Fort Sam Houston from the Express-News out of San Antonio. It is kind of a general overview of the wide diversity of religious services available to active duty military, from the point of view of the services at this fort. It's a lifestyle-type article, fairly positive towards the subject, nothing too controversial, which is part of why I was pleased by this bit:

Currently, commanders at Lackland AFB and Fort Hood allow Wiccan meetings. Wiccans praise the Earth rather than a supreme being. He said the Fort Sam Houston installation commander recognized the need to support Wiccan soldiers and their formal practice of worship. Maney said the post doesn't have a recognized Wiccan lay leader and never received a formal request to establish Wiccan meetings on post.

(To clarify that last sentence, that section of the article talks about the accommodations made to ensure as much as possible that all personnel have access to services that meet their needs-- in other words the commander is open to Wiccan services and therefore they have not specifically needed to request them.)

It's kind of a curious thing, that the US military has such retrogressive policies about gays and lesbians, yet at the same time they have been remarkably open-minded about religious practice. The US Army Chaplain's Handbook, which I believe is no longer actually published but is still consulted, had a section about serving the needs of Wiccan personnel as far back as 1978. While not an official document of recognition, the Handbook has been valuable in many civilian legal struggles to get Wicca recognized as a "real" religion. (There is a good overview of military policy regarding Wicca, the opposition it's received from some politicians including bad ol' Dubya, and Wiccan/pagan practice in the military in this 1999 Lady Liberty League report by Selena Fox, a wonderful lady who also contributed to the update of the Wiccan material in the Handbook in 1983.)

Despite the military's generally accommodating attitude, though, the Department of Veteran Affairs remains oddly stubborn about stonewalling requests to have the Wiccan pentagram added to their official list of optional spiritual emblems that can be placed on veterans' headstones. The list includes symbols for Humanism, Atheism, Eckankar, and some other fairly obscure religions. The Pagan Veterans Headstone Campaign has more information and continues to petition the DVA. According to ReligiousTolerance.org, who wrote to the DVA with specific questions, it is possible to get a marker without any symbol and to add your own symbol later at your own expense-- which isn't particularly fair, but at least they aren't actively preventing any representation of a particular faith-- but on the other hand, they note that the stated requirements for having an emblem approved include "a written request from the recognized head of the religious group, a list of national officers, and a membership tally". One wonders how Atheism, Hindu, or Sufism met those requirements...

Still, I have always found it encouraging that even though Wiccan or Pagan civilians still often find it difficult to gain acceptance in their communities, schools, and workplaces, the military has been on the whole pretty accepting and accommodating.