Subj : Pagan Bill of Rights
To   : SEAN DENNIS
From : TODD HENSON
Date : Wed Mar 14 2001 01:07 am

> TODD HENSON wrote in a message to SEAN DENNIS:
> 
>  TH> Ah, I do remember a controversy at Fort Hood. Maybe you can refresh
>  TH> my memory. Were the 
>  TH> people indeed prevented from practicing their beliefs amongst
>  TH> themselves, or was the complaint 
>  TH> over whether to have a Wiccan equivalent of a chaplain available to
>  TH> them? 
> 
> Both.  There were actual Army chaplains of the Wiccan faith (actually, only
> one) on the post.  Also, on post, the local Wiccan/Pagan faith group was
> holding a weekly ritual/class.  That really pissed off the Judeo-Christian
> groups big time.  There was some congressman (from the South and very 
obviously
> a "good ol' boy") just going banannas about it.  I thought it was quite
> hilarious.


Perhaps you can find the original article on that. I don't remember hearing
about any pagans 
being prevented from even practicing their rituals.


> Also, the local new age shop was picketed by a local Baptist church, but the
> funny thing, it was all children picketing, not adults, save for the single
> preacher.  It reeked of a setup and it seemed to me that the adults had 
better
> things to do?  The shop in question was not necessarily a "witch-oriented"
> shop; they carried witchy items as well as other "new age" items as well 
(i.e.
> crystals, herbs, incense).


I try to look at this from the perspective of the earliest Christians. I
don't think I remember them 
ever picketing anybody, they just preached the gospel and lived it. Of
course, they were a 
persecuted bunch, so naturally they didn't have much chance to picket much
of anything, but I 
don't know of any scriptures that tell people to form a picket line. :-) 

 I wonder exactly what they were trying to accomplish. Do you know? Were
they trying to get 
the city to shut the place down, or were they just handing out tracts to
passers-by? I'm not sure 
if that could be considered illegal.


> >  TH> I'm not aware that pagans are being denied their rights in America.
> > 
> > Oh, they are, believe me.  Especially in the military.
> 
>  TH> I require more than a "they are". :-)
> 
> Hmm, good example.  Requesting time off to recognize a Wiccan/Pagan holiday
> (Samhain, for example).  I had "WICCA" listed as my religious preference (it
> was on my dogtags)... I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn't get it off 
to
> spend with my wife and her Wiccan friends.  The battery commander said it
> wasn't a real holiday.  Needless to say, I got hold of the post chaplain and
> bitched to him about it (and breaking several rules of protocol in the 
process
> :).  My BC was repremanded and he did let me go, albeit begrudgingly, for 
other
> rituals/circles/holidays that I deemed necessary.  I ALWAYS put in minimum 
two
> weeks' notice to my BC concerning that.


Yeah, I can see how that would be oppressive to Wiccans. But, did they
truly have a policy to 
accommodate *religious* holidays? Did Christians get time off for Lent,
etc? I purposely didn'y 
say Christmas, because that transcends the boundaries of *religious*
holidays because it is so 
ingrained into our culture. So, what other types of actual religious days
would they let other 
people off for?


> Then again, I was in an artillery unit... that should explain a bit of the
> mentality right there, heh.
> 
> >  TH> When are pagan rituals interfered with in America?
> > 
> > Try Fort Hood, Texas, again.  Let me try to see if I can find the article
> > through some friends and I'll post it here... it was an outright shame.
> 
>  TH> Yeah, that would be informative.
> 
> It was in the Fort Hood Sentinel and the Killeen Daily Herald.  I don't have
> URLs for those newspapers at the moment, but I'm sure a Google search would
> turn something up.
> 
> Later,
> Sean



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