PaganCentric

I stumbled across an article this morning about a new witch being hired at a place called Wookey Hole Caves in the United Kingdom.  Wookey Hole Caves is a show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The cave is noted for the Witch of Wookey Hole – a roughly human shaped rock outcrop, reputedly turned to stone by a monk from Glastonbury.

Apparently someone decided once upon a time to cash-in on the notion that a witch was once turned to stone there by a monk, and it’s been something of a gaudy tourist attraction ever since. I mention this because I couldn’t help but wonder if I should be offended by all this. I mean, if one assumes that the mythical story actually happened, is this not a celebration of the murder of a witch (possibly one of my ancestors) by a representative of the Christian Church? Of course, no one ever thought about Wiccans, Pagans or genuine witches when they erected this cash cow. If anything, their estimations about who and what a witch is seem to have been drawn from The Wizard of Oz, not anything remotely near reality.

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by Andrah Wyrdfire
Examiner.com

There was a local case, back in 2005, where a Pagan friend of mine was divorcing her Pagan husband, which involved their [then] 9-year-old son.  Since their son was attending a Catholic School, the judge ruled that they were not allowed to expose their son to their “non-mainstream” religion.  If memory serves me correctly, I believe it was because a case-worker and the judge felt it would be confusing for their son to attend a Catholic School and also be exposed to Paganism.  The parents obtained representation from the ACLU and their story was all over the news.

Pagans and the Law:  Understand Your Rights was published by The Career Press in 2003 and I instantly ordered it once I saw it on sale at amazon.com.  I offered it to my friend, but she decided to just let the ACLU handle their case.  I recently finished reading it and feel ready to say that I’m better prepared to defend myself in court should I ever face discrimination.

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While various articles that I’ve read on this subject have had an undercurrent of mocking the issue, overall this a good thing, I think, and it’s positive that it’s being discussed in the mainstream (at least in England). Hopefully one day America will join the 21st Century and follow suit. I’ve included an excerpt below:

Pagan Police to Get Witchcraft Holidays

Police officers who indulge in witchcraft have been given the right to take Hallowe’en and the summer solstice off as religious holidays.

Bosses have formally recognised pagans as a minority group and granted them the same rights as others such as Muslims.

Members of the new Pagan Police Association will have guaranteed holiday on the faith’s eight festival days. But one pagan officer has sparked controversy by admitting he uses witchcraft to boost his chances of promotion.

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I wanted to wish everyone a happy July 4th! This has always been a great day for me, during which I’ve always found myself humbled by the opportunities that are available to us as Americans. This is a great country. I think the whole world knows that, irregardless of how many toes we’ve stepped upon at times because we’ve elected the wrong people to lead us.

On this day, especially, I want all American Pagans, Wiccans, witches, shamans and other assorted misfits to take pride in their country. Don’t let the Religious Right and the traffickers of hate browbeat you into thinking that you’re somehow less of an American than they are. No one owns the exclusive right to define what it means to be an American. In fact, I am of the opinion that anyone who thinks that you can only be a true American if you think, act and believe just like them knows astonishingly little about the United States of America.

I am Pagan. I am American. I am proud. Anyone who doesn’t like that can go take a flying leap. “American” is not the same thing as “Christian”. I just want all of us Pagans, whatever path we might follow, to take pride in being Americans today and celebrate our country, and resolve that those wingnuts on the Far Right and Religious Right are not what Thomas Jefferson (who was a Deist, not a Christian) had in mind. We are just as American as they are. More so, in fact, because we believe more passionately the rights of all Americans, and not just those who agree with us.