Standing Up, Being Heard
The O.C. Register has a profile up of Orange County Witch Yvonne Conway, national spokesperson for the Covenant of the Goddess, who was recently involved (along with COG) in the fight to get the US Department of Veterans Affairs to include the Pentacle on grave markers and tombstones.
“Conway is the national spokesperson for the Berkley-based witchcraft organization Covenant of the Goddess. She may also be Orange County’s most prominent witch. The 37-year-old Huntington Beach native organizes three Meetup.com social networking groups for Orange County witches, pagans and ghost enthusiasts … In 2008, she will help co-host a four day national conference on witchcraft near Yucaipa. As a fully “out-of-the-broom-closet” witch, Coway says her job is to put a public face on Wicca, the pagan faith she estimates up to 1,000 Orange County residents practice.”
Conway represents a newer generation of Pagan leaders who are transcending the limiting politics of lockstep unity and are instead helping to build strong coalitions around issues that diverse Pagan and Heathen groups care about (like our religious symbols on Veteran grave markers).
“It’s tough for (wiccans) to find a way to work together … But this was about prejudice and being treated like second class citizens or less because of our religious beliefs. There was absolutely no controversy.”
The Veteran Pentacle Quest is now evolving and moving forward to work towards the approval of Heathen and Druid symbols, something that activists like Yvonne Conway will no doubt be involved in.
One response so far
I’ll be glad to see other symbols than the pentacle. Though I’d rather work towards inclusion of the triskele or triple spiral than the Awen. Well, both would be fine, ideally.