Pissed off Wiccan for Peace: For Judy

Friday, May 19, 2006

For Judy

I was going to just address this in the comments section but it's too big so...

"LOL! Remind me-- when was the last time you were arrested and threatened with being executed for being Wiccan in this country?

Any non-Christian religion in this country is not tolerated-- give me a break."

So it's only intolerance if you're being executed?????????

"I don't think that witchcraft is a religion. I wish the military would rethink this decision."
-- George W. Bush to ABCNEWS, June, 1999

Senate Republican joins
call to end military
accommodation of Wicca:

...During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., submitted a statement decrying Wicca, a nature-based faith, as irreligious and saying it should not be accommodated by the military....

...The persecution of Brandi Blackbear began in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings. According to her complaint, she was targeted by school administrators in the spring of 1999 because of rumors that she had written a story "about an incident at school." (Blackbear is an aspiring fiction writer, with an interest in horror stories.) Her locker was searched and her private notebooks confiscated. School officials found a story involving a shooting on a school bus and promptly suspended her.

Ostracized and harassed by fellow students, Blackbear returned to school in the fall of 1999 and began a private study of Wicca. Within a few months, a teacher was hospitalized for a still unknown ailment, and Blackbear says she was blamed: An aptly named assistant principal, Charles Bushyhead, accused her of practicing Wicca, casting spells, and causing the hospitalization of the mysteriously ill teacher. According to the lawsuit, Bushyhead called Blackbear an immediate threat to the school and suspended her for another 15 days. ...

...This is what religious freedom means to some devout Americans: the freedom to practice "respectable" or "true" religions, not "counterfeit" religions like Wicca. If the accusations of witchcraft in Blackbear's case are outré, the majoritarian religious fervor that punishes adherence to alternative faiths is common. It shapes disputes about official school prayers, which are usually challenged by people of minority faiths whose children are scorned and taunted by the majority. It surfaced recently in the response of the right-wing Family Research Council to an invocation by a Hindu priest offered in the U.S. Congress. "Our founders," proclaimed the council, "expected that Christianity--and no other religion--would receive support from the government, as long as that support did not violate people's consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference." ... (bolding mine)

Wiccans Offer Alternative to Boy Scouts
CNSNews.com ^ | October 31, 2002 | Michael L. Betsch

Posted on 10/31/2002 9:05:17 AM PST by H8DEMS

(CNSNews.com) - Frustrated by an unsuccessful campaign to achieve religious recognition from the Boy Scouts of America, a Seattle-based Wicca church has launched its own youth program, which is based on tolerance for different beliefs, including differences in sexual orientation.

SpiralScouts founder Pete 'Pathfinder' Davis believes that many of the things the Boy Scouts are doing are "socially inappropriate." He said he created to the SpiralScouts to "fill the void left by prejudicial treatment of other established children's programs."

America Gets Wise To The Wiccan Menace
An American Wiccan has filed a legal challenge against religious persecution from his divorce court. Apropos of nothing, Cale J. Bradford, the chief judge of the Marion Superior Court in Indiana banned the Wiccan Thomas Jones Jr. and his Wiccan ex-wife Tammie Bristol from exposing their 9 year-old son to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals" such as Wicca. As Mr. Jones, who has "organized Pagan Pride Day events in Indianapolis," complained"

"This was done without either of us requesting it and at the judge's whim. It is upsetting to our son that he cannot celebrate holidays with us, including Yule, which is winter solstice, and Ostara, which is the spring equinox."

Way too many to list, just go read it...

posted by Unknown at 6:20 PM :: ~#~
(6) comments

6 Comments:

Only murder is lack of tolerance? Oh the elastic band of Christian reasoning! If a sopped up punk says a dirty word to a Christian girl, it's persecution. But as long as we don't kill Wiccans, they have no right to complain.

Give me a break. Go cut some willow switches, Kimber, and give them a demonstration of some of the Burning Times festivities.

By Joel, at 2:55 AM

Thank you so much, Joel. I was a bit worried I was being overly emotional and over reacting because I've been off my ADs for a month. I'm glad to know it's not just my chemical imbalance. LOL

By Unknown, at 9:44 AM

christians aren't being executed/persecuted in muslim countries for minding their own business and just trying to worship the way they want to. They are being executed/persecuted for prosteletizing. Which they KNOW is illegal before they ever leave their home countries! That's not religious intolerance, that's just defending the religion they have.

And I think that a court order telling parents that they aren't allowed to raise their children in their own religion is much more than not being taken seriously! Non-christians are being persecuted by the government in this country for nothing more than trying to live by their chosen beliefs.

The fact that christians are dying for trying to convert people in countries who don't want to be converted isn't worse than the government of Texas saying the Unitarian Univeralist can't have churches in their state because it's not a "traditional" religion.

And by belittling the persecution of non-christian religions to just "not taking them seriously" you are just supporting the persecution. You are, in fact, saying that the only thing that constitutes persecution is execution or threat thereof.

By Unknown, at 4:26 PM

Ok, I'll grant you the Saudi Arabia thing. But "persecution is persecution no matter against whom it is directed" is a completely different statement from "LOL! Remind me-- when was the last time you were arrested and threatened with being executed for being Wiccan in this country? Any non-Christian religion in this country is not tolerated-- give me a break."

When you belittle what we go through because it's not execution, you are fostering the notion that it's just a little bit more ok. Even if you don't believe it yourself. I don't think that what goes on here is any less heinous than what happened to the nun. And the thing that makes the US worse is that it is so hypocritical about it. They constantly spout "separation of church and state" and "religious freedom", but the unwritten text is "unless you're not a christian". "Everyone is worse than us because they don't allow christians"..."but we're ok if we don't allow pagans". Muslim countries flat out tell you they don't want christianity there. Is it ok? That's for the citizens of Saudi Arabia to decide, not us.

I think we could both stand to do some research on the subject. Yes, I don't like christianity. I don't like the fact that christians feel like they not only need but are entitled to convert the rest of the world to their way of thinking because god said so. I know damn good and well you don't like it when protestants tell you catholics are wrong and you need to convert or you're going to hell. I don't say christians are wrong to be christians. They can be christians all they want to. They just need to keep it to themselves.

By Unknown, at 8:48 PM

wicca is a religion to those who believe it.my wife is wiccan, i am not. she will have the sign of wicca on her tombstone.my brother is muslim and i am athiest. only because we believe in our choices.t.y to the narrow minds out there. JIM,IN MONTANA.

By Anonymous, at 11:25 AM

I will attest to your thinking Joel! I've had the hideous misfortune of living in Texas as a solitary Wiccan. Having been bullied, stalked, chastised and recorded (yes RECORDED)by "Christian" corporate co-workers,I'm probably as pissed off a Wiccan as you will ever meet. It took a gruelling six months to get out of hell after seven years of not exactly knowing why I was considered an "out-cast"..I could provide details but still trying to heal and recover. Most would choose to disbelieve the abberative injustice I've experienced at the hands of the righteous and almighty baptist culture there. If this sounds a bit bizzare, then you must know how I feel. Having serious trust issues.

Sharon AWAY from Texas

By Anonymous, at 1:31 PM