Blessed Be Seeing You In Court
Wicca in the legal-battle news once again. The first case regards Cynthia Simpson who sued Chesterfield County after she was excluded from a list of religious leaders allowed to pray at Board of Supervisors meetings. The case is now in the federal appeals court after Simpson won in U.S. District Court back in 2003.
“I’m no attorney, but it’s clear to me that my local government can’t discriminate against any religion,” – Cynthia Simpson, from a statement before the appeals court
Why is Chesterfield fighting this? Because, according to County Attorney Steven L. Micas “we have had this policy in place for 20 years”. I can’t see why they are losing with a tight-knit defense like that.
The other case involves a hotel, a Wiccan group and a looming lawsuit from the ACLU. This all started when the Ozark Avalon Church of Nature booked a hotel for a Imbolc gathering only to have the hotel pull out months after the initial reservation due to “threats of boycotts and protests should this event occur at our property”, forcing the group to move to another hotel at the last minute and “suffer thousands of dollars in losses because of having to rebook on short notice” according to the Wiccan group.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the local ACLU chapter who had this to say.
“If the hotel pulled out of the contract based on fear of protests, Ozark Avalon could win civil damages. It sounds like religious persecution to me. What if they did this to Protestants or Catholics? It’s like saying we don’t want a group of black people here because people in Hannibal are going to protest.” – Dan Viets, general counsel for the Mid-Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
Think this is all fun? Wait till the two Pagan-related cases pending before the Supreme Court come around!
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