|
 
|
Links |
Essays/Articles |
Calender |
~~Pagan
Religious Discrimination in the US Today~~
In this day and age, when discrimination is mentioned, the first
thing that pops to mind here in America, is discrimination based on
race. Sometimes one may also think of gender, but almost never does
one think of religion. Discrimination, prejudice, and persecution on
the basis of religion are often relegated to history, to the
Holocaust or the time several centuries ago when the Puritans came to
America or to the Inquisition. Yet, religious prejudice is alive and
well in our modern society, especially against practitioners of the
“Old Religions,” those who practice Paganism. Paganism is
not a religion itself; it is a category of religions. These include
Wicca, or Witchcraft, as it is also known, Druidism, Odinism, and the
Native American Shamanistic traditions, as well as many others. These
religions often have a belief in some type of magic, they are often
polytheistic, meaning they believe in multiple Gods and/or Goddesses,
they often believe in some type of reincarnation rather than a
“heaven,” and they are usually “nature-based”
meaning they have a strong reverence for the Earth and all forms of
life. None of these is however a universal belief, and there are many
others that are more or less collectively held. Ever since the repeal
of the anti-witchcraft laws in Great Britain in 1951 (US Army 231),
and the recognition of Wicca as a legitimate religion by the US
government in 1985 (“Witches’ Federal” 1), the number
of practitioners of these religions has grown rapidly. Today,
estimates range anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 Pagans in the United
States alone (Drobac 3). The number of solitary practitioners, the
many different beliefs among different religions that fall into the
Pagan category, and the lack of a hierarchy within each pagan
religion, such as the individual Christian religions have, make a
more precise estimation difficult if not impossible. More and more
people are “coming out of the broom closet,” as it is
jokingly called among Pagans, and letting their faith be known.
However, the age-old prejudices, fears, and problems are cropping up
more and more often as well. Discrimination of Pagans is not
perpetrated and perpetuated solely by the closed-minded individuals
in our society, but also by corporations, public school systems, and
even by members of our state governments.
In October of 1998, Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci ran a
political ad targeting his opponent, then Massachusetts Attorney
General, Scott Harshbarger. In 1992 the Attorney General had stepped
in and threatened to prosecute radical-right televangelists for
assaulting and threatening Wiccans in Salem (Walker,
“Unconstitutional” 4). This according to Cellucci was an
example of “misplaced priorities” (Walker,
“Unconstitutional” 1), instead of the response to a
violation of civil rights and near violation of the state’s hate
crime laws that it really was. The only explanation given by his
campaign spokesperson was that they are “outside the
mainstream,” implying that because of that they had no rights
(Walker, “Unconstitutional” 1). The political ad featured a
police lineup consisting of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and a
pointy hatted, wart-nosed witch. The announcer first mocks
Harshbarger for banning Christmas decorations in the public areas of
his offices, and then says that the Attorney General “threatened
prosecution on behalf of the witches of Salem. Scary, huh?” The
witch then throws back her head and cackles (“Witches
Take”). It is not only the lack of respect for civil rights, but
also the perpetuation of a negative stereotype that angered local
Massachusetts Pagans. Another instance involving a state governor
occurred last May in Nebraska. Governor Mike Johanns declared May 22
“March for Jesus Day,” stating that it “was
established as time for us to join together as people of many faiths
so that we may pay homage to our divine authority”
(“Nebraska” 1). Obviously he was ignoring the fact that no
faith but Christianity claims Jesus as its divine authority. He did
claim to offer the same courtesy to other faiths, though. He
indicated he would sign similar proclamations for other religions,
“I would nothesitate to sign a proclamation for the Jewish
faith, Hinduism, whatever,” but qualified that statement by
adding, “so long as it doesn’t require me to sign something
I don’t personally agree with,” and in response to a
hypothetical question he said he would not sign a proclamation for
Wicca (“Wicca” 1). These statements not only defy the first
amendment, but also directly go against the 1971 U.S Supreme Court
decision, Lemon vs. Kurtszman, that, to be constitutional, a
government action must “(1) have a secular purpose (2) neither
promote or inhibit religion and (3) not entangle the government with
religion” (Walker, “WitchVox” 1). Governor Johanns
obviously violated all three of these with his March for Jesus Day
proclamation and violated the First Amendment by refusing to sign a
similar Wiccan proclamation.
Corporations are also trying to define which religions are okay for
their purposes. The most recent case of this involves the Bi-Lo
Supermarket chain, owned by the parent company Royal Ahold, which
also owns Giant Food Stores, Stop & Shop and many other companies
around the world. Bi-Lo runs a program called the Booster Program. In
it, nonprofit organizations sign up and when people shop at Bi-Lo
they can designate a portion of what they spend to go to up to three
of the organizations. During the summer of 1999, Witches Against
Religious Discrimination, Inc. (WARD) acquired the proper paperwork
and signed up. Later, they received a phone call informing them that
they did not meet the program guidelines. They were told the
guidelines, and WARD did, in fact, meet them. When confronted with
that fact, the woman on the phone admitted that “basically it
boiled down to that Bi-Lo does not want to associate with [the]
organization because [they] are witches” (Wynne 1). She also
stated that she and the Board of Directors of Bi-Lo felt that
allowing WARD to participate would cause controversy and bring ill
will toward their organization. WARD told her that other companies
including Alamo Rental Cars had previously included WARD in such
promotions with no ill effects, but the answer was still no. Darla
Wynne, the Assistant National Director of WARD stated that “When
I asked her if she would decline a black organization because they
were black or a Jewish organization because they were Jewish, her
response was ‘Oh, Lord, no!’ And I pointed out that if she
would notdecline them because they were black or Jewish, then how
could she decline us for being Witches and Wiccans, and got no
response” (1). WARD is now considering having the ACLU look into
the matter.
Organizations are not the only ones having trouble with businesses
in the religious area. Some individuals have been fired and others
have come dangerously close in Pagan related incidents. Andy McGuire,
who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, maintains his company’s
website as a part of his job. The idea came up to include links to
employee’s personal sites as a way for customers to get to know
them better. Mr. McGuire’s boss liked the idea, so he began with
three sites. One of these was his own, and contained information on
his and his wife’s practice of Paganism and Wicca. Later, he was
called into the vice president’s office and almost fired,
because, as the written discipline report stated, he had “linked
the company’s site to another site that mentioned Paganism”
(Campbell 2). The vice president of the company had not even bothered
to look at the site himself; the fact that someone told him it
referred to paganism was enough for the write-up. While Mr. McGuire
did not lose his job, he came close. Jean Webb, a Wiccan resident of
Republic, Missouri, was not as lucky. She worked for the Republic
Monitor, the local newspaper, until last summer, when she wrote an
editorial supporting the removal of the Christian fish from the town
seal. Soon after, she was fired and she can only assume it was
because of the editorial and the ensuing controversy. Four months
later, she still had not been able to find another job locally and
has received harassing phone calls accusing her of being a devil
worshiper (Rogers 2).
Schools across the nation have caused trouble for pagan teachers as
well. Already this year, two teachers were disciplined in just less
than a month in Wiccan related incidents. The first occurred in North
Carolina, where 11th grade English teacher Sheri Eicher was suspended
and ultimately forced to leave her position. On January 10, 2000,
Mrs. Eicher was suspended indefinitely with pay because of the
website of the coven she and her husband lead (Eicher, “A
Letter” 1). The site, which bore a notice stating, “if you
are under 18 or offended by nudity, do not enter” contained
pictures of rituals, in one of which appeared several
“skyclad” people. Skyclad is the term for ritual nudity in
pagan ceremonies. It represents the stripping away of all disguises
before the Deity. Mrs. Eicher does not practice this idea, was not
one of the people in the picture, and her religion was no surprise to
the school. She had told them of her religion approximately fourteen
months before (Leclerq, “Wiccan Teacher Sent” 1-2). Some
people in the community tried to claim that her religion had nothing
to do with her suspension. They claimed that, “The crux of the
issue is whether it’s appropriate for a schoolteacher to stand
in front of students while sponsoring a web site with full frontal
nudity” (Leclerq, “Wiccan Teacher’s Removal” 2).
However, ritual nudity is a part of the religion and the lifestyle of
many pagans. It is no more pornographic or sexual in nature than the
nudity in National Geographic Magazine. On January 27th, it was
decided that because “Ms. Eicher’s effectiveness in the
classroom has been undermined at the present time by media and
community attention” (Eicher, “Statement” 1), she
would not be returning to her position with Scotland County Schools.
Of course, if they had not started the controversy, Mrs. Eicher would
not have been undermined in her position at all. The second incident
involving a teacher occurred in Niles, Illinois. Eighth grade science
teacher, Cheryl Malinowski served a three-day suspension in early
February for giving a student a copy of Scott Cunningham’s
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. The girl was given the
book because she was doing a report on herbal healing, and the book
contains info on herbs (Haight, “Book Raises” 1). The
father of the girl who received the book compared it to pornography,
stating “what we’re upset about is having this available in
the school. School officials would not give them a Playboy to look
at. There has to be better sources of material on herbs than
this” (Haight, “Book on Witchcraft” 2). Many members
of the community consider her action proselytizing as if, by giving
the child a source for her report, she was trying to convert her to
Wicca. Wiccans, however, do not proselytize. They believe that you
should only share the religion with those who seek it out, an idea
that comes partially from growing tired of Christians who try to
convert them and partially from the Burning Times, the pagan name for
the Inquisition and the American and European witch-trials of the
17th century, during which discussion led to being burned at the
stake. The papers that covered the story also received many letters
to the editor expressing the sentiment, as Peg Aloi did, that “if
Ms. Malinowski had offered a student a book on interpreting the
Bible or the Koran or on Orthodox Jewish festivals, she would not
have been subjected to such sensationalism and scrutiny” (1) and
often others also suggested she would not even have been suspended.
The students of America’s schools are also having problems with
freedom of religion. Three school districts in the last year and a
half have tried to ban pentacles, a symbol of the Wiccan faith from
the school dress code, listing it among such thinks as gang signs and
the KKK. In all three cases, local pagans offered to allow the ban,
as long as all other religious symbols such as the Christian cross
and WWJD clothing and jewelry and the Jewish Star of David were also
banned. Each time the school refused this measure of fairness. In
October of 1999, Mark Lannoye, a sophomore student at Mesquite High
School in Mesquite, Texas was told that he could no longer wear his
pentacle or dress all in black. “They had been trying to keep me
from wearing all black since eighth grade,” said Lannoye,
“but this year, Mr. Nicks, the school principal called me into
the office and told me that the school was going to stick to its
policy, and that I was not going to be able to wear my pentacle”
(Barbassa 1). The school alleged that such things could be considered
gang paraphernalia. Mark repeatedly missed class because he had been
called into the office for the way he dressed and refused to change
clothes or remove the pentacle. The school records show that he had
missed twenty-three class periods since school began that year, other
than when he was sick. These records also show no reason for his
missing them, even though for most of those class periods, the time
was missed because the school officials made him come to the office
(Barbassa 3). In November, after being threatened with a lawsuit, the
school began to backpedal, claiming that they had never detained Mark
and saying in writing that they had always permitted religious
expression through dress, thereby giving the Lannoyes a long standing
precedent to base their rights on and ending any problems they had
had (Lannoye 1). In March of 1999 in Lincoln Park, Michigan, Crystal
Seifferly went through a similar experience; however, she ended up
going to court, supported by the ACLU, to defend her right to wear a
pentacle. Her school had banned pentacles in an amendment to a
longstanding ban on gang-related clothes and symbols (“Witch
Wins” 3). She won the lawsuit, but the school still refused to
remove the word pentacle from the dress code, only conceding its loss
by saying that students will be allowed to wear a pentacle only if it
is a symbol of their religion (Ortiz 1).
The third recent occurrence of this happened in September of 1999 in
Roswell, New Mexico. The Roswell ISD school board banned pentacles,
even as a religious symbol. When word got out that the board was
considering reversing the ban, more than 200 people came to the
September 7th meeting, most of them Christians calling for the
pentacle, which they saw as a Satanic symbol, to remain banned.
Fifty-six people spoke for three and a half hours before a vote was
taken. Kathryn King, a pagan minister in Roswell, spoke for a time,
telling the crowd that Pagans are not devil-worshipers and was quoted
as saying “I’m asking my Christian brothers and sisters to
please allow us the same courtesy you’re getting” (Stephens
1). Even a couple of students spoke. “One kid, I think he had
green hair, he was preaching tolerance - what was good for one
religion was good for another. He did not get much applause
though,” stated administrative assistant to the superintendent,
Emma Burt (Stephens 1). One of the five board members was absent from
the meeting, recovering from emergency surgery, and when the vote was
taken, it was a tie, 2-2, so the ban remained in effect. After the
meeting the pastor of the Church on the Move, Steve Smotherman,
suggested that King, and Wiccans in general, should change their
symbol if they want to wear one. “But she shouldn’t be
allowed to promote anything which promotes violence” (Fuqua,
“Pastor” 1). Evidently, he has not thought about how he
would feel if someone told him to just pick another symbol, because
they did not like the cross. There is no difference. He also said,
“King may have claimed that the pentagram is actually a symbol
of peace, but her beliefs don’t change centuries of symbolism.
How can one person can one person change what a symbol means? You
can’t take one symbol and say it doesn’t mean what you
think it means because we don’t believe that” (Fuqua,
“Pastor” 1). A member of his congregation supported these
ideas saying that the pentagram had been seen as a satanic symbol for
many centuries, and asked “Why would she pick a violent symbol
to promote their love? It’s been known as a violent symbol from
the Medieval Age on” (Fuqua, “Pastor” 1). Of course,
both of them are ignoring what the pentacle has always meant to
Pagans and what it meant to the indigenous peoples of Europe before
the conversion to Christianity.
They also ignore the fact that Christianity, and true Satanists did
in fact change the symbolism. The pentacle, or pentagram, as it is
sometimes called, is a five-pointed star inside a circle. To Wiccans
and various other pagans, the lower four points each represent one of
the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The upper point
represents Spirit. Spirit is the life force that connects us all. It
is the soul and the inner self. The highest point represents Spirit
because it is seen as above and more powerful than the four elements.
The circle surrounding the star also represents many things- the
unbroken circle of life, death and rebirth and the unending love of
the Wiccan Goddess among others. Stating that the pentacle has been
known as violent, etc, from the Medieval Age on, is actually a
logical statement, but proves nothing, because the Medieval Age was
the height of the Inquisition, one of the largest persecutions of non-Christians
in history. On September 27th,after being made aware of the
possibility of lawsuits and their probable outcome, the Roswell
School Board voted again on the dress code, this time removing a list
of symbols, including the pentacle, and any goth or occult references
in favor of a sentence prohibiting items which show membership in any
gang (Fuqua, “We Win” 1).
While these official cases of discrimination are happening, they are
relatively rare. The trouble is that they are becoming more and more
common. Even more common though, and harder to fight, are the
“unofficial” happenings. Almost every Pagan in America has
been called a demon-lover, devil-worshipper, or Satanist at least
once in their life and usually much more than once. An email was sent
to a Pagan mailing list called The Goddess 2000 Project on February
21, 2000 from a woman whose 16 year-old sister had a very
comprehensive website. It contained almost sixty sections, some of
them on Wicca and Paganism, had over 10,000 hits to the site and had
taken her a very long time to make. Someone had hacked into her site
and deleted everything (Hugh 1). They replaced all that they had
deleted with a single page that contained nothing but the following
text and picture.
"Jesus saves all...don't worry sweet sweet Emily...you will be
within the Lord's heart for all times...He will forgive you of all
your sins. He will save you from the evil you call wicca...it hurts
to type it....evil...pure evil.....remember...the Lord loves
you." (“Emma’s Page” 1). Granted, it
was not a particularly hateful message, but it was anti-Wiccan, and
hacking is against the law. Not only did they hack her site, they
also hacked into her email and erased all of her saved emails and
email addresses. At last notice, the woman was looking to see what
kind of legal action they could take against those who did it (Hugh
1). This sort of personal action is not only happening online, but in
the real world as well. Jean Webb, the woman who was fired from her
job at the local newspaper, has answered the phone to a stream of
obscenities many times. Also, when she leaves the house, or arrives
home, a neighbor often stands outside shouting that she is “a
witch who will face eternal damnation for what she’s done”
(Rogers 1). The large stones in a field down the street from her
house, where her daughter, Jessica, used to play, have become the
canvas for graffiti accusing them of worshiping Satan. In fact
Jessica received so much abuse at school that she is now being taught
at home (Rogers 2). Andy McGuire’s 13-year-old daughter,
Melinda, wore to school the pair of pentacle earrings she had
received as a birthday present. Melinda said later, “One girl
would only pass me in the hall by walking clear over to the other
side of the hallway. She said I was a Satan-worshipper”
(Campbell 6).
College Club is a website where college students can join clubs,
post to message boards and, in general, interact with other college
students around the world. Members of several Pagan clubs there were
asked what kind of problems they had had from non-pagans. As with
most websites, College Club members go by self-chosen nicknames, so
their real names are unknown. Many of the responses included
something along the lines of being them being told straight out
“you’re going to hell” (Skylla), or being called
Satanists, devil-worshippers and other similar names (Rowanstone 1,
CobaltKat 1, Wind Dancing 1). Such responses were not from any one
area of the country either. Wind Dancing, who is from Iowa, says that
her entire family thinks she is a Satanist and that “My father
still thinks that I sacrificed a guinea pig and buried it in the
garden and refused to believe that I had given her to a friend.”
She no longer goes to the local mall because many Christians go there
to hang out. “At times [they] try to save me and when that
doesn’t work they tell me I’m going to hell and threaten to
send me there personally” (Wind Dancing 1). During
Ladybugsum99’s senior year of high school in Blackwell,
Oklahoma, a boy brought a deck of tarot cards to school and everyone
was saying that the cards were a tool of the Devil. When she said she
used them often and they were in no way associated with the Devil,
the other students there asked her religion. “For the rest of
the year I was called a Devil Worshiper and had water poured on me
more than once to ‘baptize me.’” When she tried to get
the harassment stopped by going to the teachers and principal, she
was told to “stay out of their way and they would leave [her]
alone” (Ladybugsum99 1). A girl called Cobaltkat, said that she
had been cornered and actually spat upon (Cobaltkat 1). When NemetFox
started wearing a pentacle to school, he noticed that everyone
avoided him, staying as far away as possible in the halls (NemetFox
1). It is not just at high school that such harassment is occurring.
When Rowanstone moved into her dorm her freshman year of college, she
expected no problems. She was open about her religion in high school
and no one had bothered her about it. When she moved into her dorm,
she told her roommate what religion she followed and thought
everything was okay. About four days later, though, she came into the
room to find her roommate’s stuff was completely gone.
Rowanstone saw her ex-roommate in the hall a few minutes later and
was told she moved out “because her parents would not allow her
to live with a devil worshipper” (Rowanstone 1). Rowanstone
moved in with another girl who thought it was okay that Rowanstone
was a witch. However, when she came back after the break between fall
and spring semesters, Rowanstone again found she had no roommate.
“She thought she could deal with the idea, but when it came down
to my spells- like a healing one for a friend, or the fact that I
used incense -thinking I used drugs, I believe, she could not deal
with it and complained” (Rowanstone 1). That complaint about
incense got Rowanstone in trouble, even though at her school incense
is acceptable in dorms if it is for religious purposes. Rowanstone
stated, “I still deal with the whispers. Yes, my entire dorm,
all 1000 kids, know I am a witch. I am now the witch on the first
floor. I never hear the end of ‘can you turn so-and-so into a
frog’” (1).
Every instance of religious discrimination, prejudice, or
persecution has an effect. Such instances make Pagans who have
remained in the broom closet continue to stay there. In Carolyn
Campbell’s article about Pagans in Utah, a woman identified only
as Jane said, “Coming out of the broom closet publicly is
something I feel very reluctant about. I might be discriminated
against and experience subtle prejudice or misunderstanding”
(1). In spite of the First Amendment and numerous other protective
laws, religious prejudice against Pagan religions is rampant enough
to force people into practicing their beliefs underground. The more
Pagans stay in hiding, the fewer there will be to speak out against
the negative stereotypes and claims that Pagans are Satanists who put
curses on people they don’t like and turn people into frogs.
Cases such as these indicate that the fewer who speak out, the more
likely it is for those stereotypes to prevail, and the more instances
of persecution, discrimination and prejudice against Pagans will
occur. It is a vicious circle, and one that is hard to break. Some
pagans who had previously been open about their beliefs had enough
trouble and became disillusioned enough with people that they have
moved to other towns and gone back into the broom closet. Even such
actions do not always work. For example, Jean Webb, who was fired
from her job in Republic, Missouri, was not open about her beliefs
there. She and her family had moved to Republic three years earlier
from Aurora, fifteen miles down the road. In Aurora, she had been
openly Wiccan, but when they moved she decided not to mention her
beliefs to anyone in Republic (Rogers 2). Obviously, this course of
action did not work for her. Consequently, many Pagans try to keep
their beliefs secret and worry about what would happen if they were
found out. The reason they hide their beliefs, is not, as some
Christians would say, a shame about what they believe. It is instead
a fear instilled by history and what has happened to their fellow
believers: a fear of what will happen to them, their families, and
the lives they have built. Alex, a Druid from Logan, Utah, put it
like this, “There actually is no freedom of religion in this
country; it only exists if you practice what is considered the norm.
You can’t be arrested for practicing what you believe, but you
can certainly be ostracized, which is just as bad” (Campbell 5).
While this is currently the case, Pagans can hope that it will not
continue to be this way. Difficult as it is to do, the circle of
prejudice, discrimination, and persecution modern Pagans find
themselves in can be broken. The Webmaster of A Mistickal Grove said “Maybe
it is time for us to claim our religion. Maybe we need to state our
beliefs&ldots;.We shouldn’t cower in the corner, but rather free
ourselves of any binding lies. We should do this not only for
ourselves and those closest to us, but for every Earth Spiritualist.
For when “WE” exist, they can exist also. No one should
feel alone when all of us know they are not. Not when they have
obviously been guided on this path by someone. They say that there is
strength in numbers&ldots;but not only that&ldots;there is also
reaffirmation and acceptance” (A Mystickal Grove 2).
Important Note:
The views expressed by Mo'Riff and/or authors who submit works on
this website are the sole views of Mo'Riff or otherwise the author of
the work and do NOT necessarily reflect the views of anyone else. In
other words, don't get too offended; you can just hit the little [x]
button at the top right hand corner of the window or please just click
here and leave. |