PaganCentric

[This is from Fox News, so you  just know it must be true. *wink* - Claire]

A new book by a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush includes a report that White House officials did not want to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author J.K. Rowling because her writing “encouraged witchcraft.”

According to Think Progress, author Matt Latimer in his book “Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor” writes that the award became very politicized. He states, “This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.”

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Now, I’m not a big Harry Potter fan, but neither am I a hater. If a kid shows up on my doorstep on Halloween dressed as Harry Potter, it won’t offend me any more than if he showed up dressed as a Hassidic Jew carrying a calculator and a bag of gold coins. I’m able to differentiate between what is fantasy (despite prejudiced undertones) and what is reality.

The truly depressing part of the Bush Administration, in my mind, was that we were being ruled by an Evangelical Christian who didn’t believe that certain Americans had a right to practice their religion. We were being ruled by a president who was part of a Right-Wing, Ultra-Christian ideology that believes that J.K. Rowling got together with the Freemasons and the Illuminati and hatched this nefarious plan to convert all of the Christian children in the United States into diabolical, baby killing, pre-marital sex practicing heathens. Is anyone really surprised that the Bush Administration objected to giving an award to J.K. Rowling? We all know that a reasoned sense of Reality was not George W. Bush’s strong point.

I came across an article to bothered me. The Reading Pagans And Witches organization is holding the Celebrating Earth Spirituality Festival today in Stoudtburg Village, in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. Needless to say, there are zealots rushing forth to denounce it. A dozen or so Christian groups and churches are trying to organize a “wall of prayer” around the village.

James Horning, executive director of Crossfire Youth Ministries in nearby Eprhata, Pennsylvania, said, “We are asking the Christians in the community to come out and make a circle around the entire facility and stand there for one hour and pray on behalf of the community, and then go home. No signs, no shouting, no protests, just a visible sign that we disapprove … of the whole underlying theme.”

Those wacky Christians. They do so hate competition, don’t they?

- Claire

Some Shops Shun A Pagan Festival
By Ron Todt
Associated Press

ADAMSTOWN, Pa. | In the rolling hills of deeply religious rural Pennsylvania sits Stoudtburg Village, a tiny hamlet modeled on a German town. On weekends, tourists come here to visit shops on the ground floors of closely set three-story houses painted bright colors on pedestrian-only streets.

But this weekend, plans for a nature-worshipping group of modern pagans and witches to hold a festival in this picturesque section of Adamstown are getting a mixed reception, with some shop owners welcoming the visitors but others saying they plan to close.

“My personal feeling is that it’s not something that I’d want to have anything to do with,” said Jane Lesher, standing Friday amid the yarn creations of her shop The Soxy Lady, which will close Saturday. “I don’t see how it’s going to benefit the village, especially if it’s going to leave a bad taste in the community’s mouth.”

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References

• Reading Pagans And Witches
• Stoudtburg Village
• Crossfire Youth Ministries