A sales manager at a Bath & Body Works in Hartford, Connecticut was allegedly fired by her new regional manager for making a religious pilgrimage to Salem for Samhain. Gina Uberti, who had been working for the chain for eight years, and taking the pilgrimage for six, had already gotten prior approval from her former regional manager for the Samhain trip. But her new boss, Sandra Scibelli, had other ideas.

“Uberti says she explained that her vacation had already been approved and that she was celebrating a religious holiday.  Uberti says Scibelli responded, “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Let me ask you where your priorities should have been?” Uberti says she asked what was ridiculous, and Scibelli replied: “Well, you will need a new career in your new year.” Scibelli allegedly added, “I will be damned if I have a devil-worshipper on my team.” Uberti says she was fired in November 2008. She seeks lost wages and punitive damages for religious discrimination.”

Oops! Doesn’t sound like a great PR move for Bath & Body Works during a recession and just before the Winter holidays. Maybe the Pagan community (and their allies) should contact the firm and tell them they’ll be buying their nice-smelling soaps and bubble-baths elsewhere this year. If they don’t want “devil-worshippers” on their “team”, then they certainly don’t want any of our filthy Pagan money! Perhaps Bath & Body Works should ask Sandra Scibelli where her priorities are. If you’d like to read the full complaint, click here.

Bob Smietana of the Nashville Tennessean reports on Thomas Dyer, the first-ever Buddhist Army chaplain. Dyer was able to bypass some of the strict (and Christian-clergy favoring) military chaplaincy standards due to his former life as a Baptist pastor.

“A potential chaplain must have a master’s degree in religion. But some faiths, such as Buddhism and Wicca, don’t have seminaries, so they struggle to find chaplain candidates. Dyer qualified as a chaplain because already he had earned a master’s degree as a Baptist pastor before converting to Buddhism. Chaplains also need to be endorsed by a civilian religious group. The Department of Defense has approved few non-Christian endorsement groups.”

If this all sounds somewhat familiar it is because it deeply echoes the case of Don Larsen, a former Pentecostal Army chaplain in good standing who tried to become the first Wiccan Army chaplain only to get caught in a variety of spiteful bureaucratic actions from his former endorsing body and military superiors leaving him in a procedural limbo.

“While in the process of switching faiths within the chaplaincy (normally a routine process, involving some paperwork), a senior Army chaplain disclosed to the Pentecostal Church exactly what Larsen was switching to and as a result pulled their endorsement of Larsen before Sacred Well’s endorsement could be approved … Retired Army colonel Jim Ammerman, the president and founder of Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches admits that the church went against longstanding agreements among endorsers in pulling Larsen’s papers.”

Now, in light of this new breakthrough, could we see a second chance for Larsen or renewed hope for another would-be Wiccan Army chaplain? It remains to be seen, but some have wondered if the Army’s chaplaincy program is fundamentally broken, unable to adapt to a multi-religious reality.

“…some faith groups are overrepresented among chaplains. For example, there are 54 members of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America in the military, and 22 chaplains from the denomination. That’s one chaplain for every 2.5 church members. By contrast, there’s one imam per 353.5 Muslims, and one priest for every 1,086 Catholics. And there are no chaplains to serve the 3,214 Wiccans in the military. Recruiting chaplains from diverse faiths is a challenge, in part because the recruiting system favors Christians and Jews … In the end, Bergen, the Toronto professor, wonders if creating a diverse chaplain corps is possible…”

In a chaplaincy overrun with conservative evangelicals can any other faith grouping find a place or expect fair treatment? Is the case of Thomas Dyer a fluke or the beginning of a new trend to allow more religious diversity into the Army’s chaplaincy? What we do know is that modern Paganism is quickly approaching a time when it will have its own masters-granting seminaries in conjunction with several willing sponsoring organizations. The current maze of red-tape and various organizational “catch-22s” will not last forever, and we will soon find out if the Army is equally dedicated to serving the needs of its Wiccan soldiers as its Christian ones. Until then, I wish Thomas Dyer good luck, and hope he is the beginning of a brighter future.

I’m sure many of you have already seen this story over at Witchvox, but I just couldn’t help but mention the case of a woman in a “energy healing” program at Langara College in Vancouver that claimed she was kicked out for being a Wiccan. However, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal thought otherwise, and rejected her complaint. After reading the two journalistic accounts of the events leading up to the tribunal, it seems pretty clear that Sally Wild isn’t fully in touch with reality. Moreover, she makes a startling claim to “disability” status.

“She later elaborated as part of her complaint that she was mistreated because of her hereditary gifts of intuitive power and perception … she suffers from a disability that her lawyer described as ‘extraordinary gifts of intuition and perception that require significant accommodation.’”

Now I’ve seen plenty of flamboyant Pagans in my day play up their psychic sensitivity, but I can’t seem to remember any of them actually trying to have their “gifts” classified as a disability that required “significant accommodation”. That’s a new one on me. You can read the whole complaint, conclusions, and decision of the tribunal, here, and decide for yourself if that case had any real merit to it.

There is one related point I’d like to make about all this fuss, and that is why two major news organizations thought it was even worth covering. Any in-depth reading of the case seems to point to this being rather frivolous, an opinion the tribunal reached when looking at the evidence, so why the coverage? Surely there were other rulings by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that were more newsworthy? The answer I fear is that journalists were looking for a juicy story full of Witches and wacky goings-on and found one. While I can understand that impulse, it isn’t good journalism. All these stories have done is call attention to a young woman with some issues, issues that will be that much harder to deal with and put behind her now that she’s been accorded her 15 minutes of journalistic infamy.

(guest post by Elysia Gallo)

I’m committed to becoming another brick in the wall – one that makes it stronger – rather than becoming another sucker who punches a hole in that wall. What wall am I talking about? The wall of separation between church and state.

The Establishment Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” Jefferson later famously referred to this clause in a letter as having built “a wall of separation between church and state.” Like all walls (the Gaza wall, the US-Mexican border, the Great Firewall of China), this wall is not impermeable. It protects us from being forced by the government to join or financially support a church, but it does allow in streams of personal religious expression – the other right we hold so dear. The Constitution ensures that religious expression on a personal level is acceptable, as long as our government does not endorse one religion over another. However, there are many times when it does just that, whether purposely or simply because the majority thoughtlessly and naively sees itself as the default mode.

For example, when a crèche turns up in front of city hall, minority faiths who want equal representation in the public sphere often have to ask for inclusion after the fact. In many cases– in Wisconsin and Washington state, for example – the consequent opening of the door to all faiths is quickly followed by a swift slamming of it when too many requests flood in or the displays cause too much controversy. Baby Jesus and a menorah are one thing, but a Wiccan pentacle? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? The Festivus Pole? The mainstream can’t take it!

A poll last year found that “83% [of respondents] say a nativity scene on city property should be legal, but only 60% say a display honoring Islam during Ramadan should be legal. Overall, 58% of all Americans feel both should be legal, while 15% feel both should be illegal.” If the majority of Americans are for the nativity but only slightly more than half would open up that space to all faiths regardless of their personal religious views, you have the majority effectively suppressing the minority’s religious expression. We need to put a stop to this practice altogether, or else this stream could become a flood that washes away our Constitutional protection against such state-sanctioned oppression. The Constitution is supposed to protect the rights of minorities, not strengthen those of the majority – that’s what the Civil Rights movement was all about.

While not all Christians are trying to push their religion on us, not all non-mainstream religions are without ulterior motives of their own…

Should we support proselytizing by non-mainstream religious groups?

You may remember Jason blogging about the case of a fringe religious group called Summum trying to get its Seven Aphorisms erected in a city park in Pleasant Grove, UT, on equal standing with the Ten Commandments already displayed there.

However, Summum had challenged another city for the same reasons – the city of Duchesne, UT. While the Pleasant Grove case proceeded to the Supreme Court, Duchesne instead reluctantly moved its Ten Commandments piece to a cemetery to avoid further litigation. Surprisingly enough, this was not seen as a victory in Summum’s eyes; in an article published after the monument had been moved,

“We are saddened that the Ten Commandments monument has been removed from the city park in Duchesne,” Summum President Su Menu said.

“Summum has never requested that religious monuments be removed from government property. We have only asked that all religions be given equal access,” Menu said. “Just as the citizens of Duchesne have benefited from the display of the Decalogue, so, too, would they have benefited from the display of our Seven Aphorisms.”

So was Summum ultimately just trying to win converts, or did they believe that all beliefs could peacefully coexist if everyone had equal access to them? Would we ever want to erect a statue of the 42 Principles of Maat, or the Nine Noble Virtues, or the Wiccan Rede in a public park simply because others “may benefit” from its display? Proselytizing is not a central tenet of any Pagan faith I can think of, but does that mean we should bar others from doing so? If we are all for tolerance and acknowledging the validity of an infinite number of other paths, why would we be intolerant of a Ten Commandments statue in a park or courtroom?

And if we went to all the courthouses of the nation to dismantle any Christian-themed decorations, then what of Pagan decorations like Lady Liberty? Would you get rid of Moses yet keep Confucius? What of Mars in front of the US Capitol, or the Three Fates and the four elements in front of the Supreme Court building? Obviously we live in a society where religious expression is not easily extracted from the public sphere; indeed, in many cases it makes our lives richer.

Conversely, if tolerance is one of our core beliefs as Pagans, how can we tolerate intolerance and religious aggression? Wiccans say “An’ it harm none, do as ye will” – so the question then becomes whether Christians are actually doing harm by erecting the Ten Commandments in public places, placing nativities on City Halls, and so forth.

Pagans and Atheists – strange bedfellows?

Unfortunately what may have once been the simple, well-intentioned decorating of buildings and parks in the past is now being pushed as part of a malicious and divisive political agenda. That fits the definition of “harm” well enough for me. You can see this again and again as part of the “Culture Wars” that fundamentalist Christians believe they must wage to stop the secularization of America. In the words of Green Bay City Council President Chad Fradette, who placed the nativity on government property, “I’m trying to take this fight to the people who need to be fought. I’ll keep going on this until this group imposing Madison values crawls back into its hole and never crawls out.”

Because of people like Chad, I’m more inclined these days to crawl into bed with the atheists – to stop, or at least to impede, the progress of the Christian right juggernaut that is hell-bent on tying up taxpayer’s money in long, drawn-out court battles revolving around their supposed “persecution” by a secularized America. I realize that in not supporting religious displays on public land I’m in a small minority of Americans – but what else is new?

It’s not just Chad fighting to get us back in our hole – many Christians are organizing to be more proactive in thrusting their nativities into the public sphere, to deliberately inflame others. The response of setting up a Wiccan pentacle is just feeding into that – a retribution against having the nativity on government property. And then that pentacle gets trashed, which is just more revenge visited upon retribution. Does it make any sense? Can’t we just nip it in the bud by saying no to everyone before it gets ugly? Can’t religious displays be simply relegated to private homes, churches and temples? Why bring it to city property or schools in the first place?

A huge chorus of secularists saying “no” to these displays will probably be heard more loudly than one or two minority faiths’ disjointed efforts to fight these assaults or gain equal standing on their own.

One atheist organization, the Secular Coalition for America, has been lobbying Washington of late for initiatives that Pagans may also support, such as eliminating faith-based policies that impose mainstream religious tenets on the rest of us through discriminatory hiring, weakening science-based education and health services, and proselytizing through charity. They are also urging more atheists to come out of the closet; this article about their lobbying efforts reveals that of 23 privately self-proclaimed atheists in the House and Senate, only one was willing to go public with it! Ultimately they, too, fear PR damage on the basis of the mainstream American belief that only Christians can be moral or ethical and that atheists are necessarily evil, deluded, liberal or untrustworthy. (Sound familiar? Such labels are often applied to Pagans, too.)

As Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition, wrote to me in an email,

“Our mission is twofold: to promote non-theism and work for the separation of religion and government. We are on your side on just about all cases. […] I think it is a good idea for all of our groups to work together on the main issues and also to work for the visibility and respectability of our constituencies. The more Atheists and Pagans come out of their closets, the better off we will all be.”

Besides the Secular Coalition and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, there are more inclusive groups fighting for the same ideals (because believers of any faith can be secularists, too), such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State – the very same organization that helped Roberta Stewart and Circle Sanctuary with the pentacle quest.

What do you think? Do you want to join the atheists and other secularists to ensure that minority rights don’t get trampled by keeping faith out of the public sphere, where we still can? Or will it be more effective to fight for better minority faith inclusion in the long run? How should we respond when “culture warriors” provoke us to action?

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

An advice column for the Washington Times highlights the struggles of a Wiccan military family after the children are outed at their local school.

…my children are being discriminated against by their teachers and administrators because we are Wiccans. It all started when other children at their school found out we are Wiccan. The students now call my children witches and warlocks. I know my children are being harassed, and this is not fair to them. Their grades are now falling tremendously. I have complained about this to the teachers, counselors, assistant principal and the principal. They have done nothing about it. I wanted to use this experience as a learning tool, to teach others about our lifestyle without imposing our views on others. It was my desire to stay calm and educate only to stop the fear and harassment. I asked to do a professional development session for the staff and a presentation to my children’s classrooms. I know this would help others understand, so they would stop judging and name-calling. The teachers would not hear of this. They all said it would infringe upon the rights of other students who do not want to hear about Wiccans.

The columnist “Ms. Vicki” Johnson advises the mother to climb higher on the administrative ladder with her concerns, and to seek counselling in order to deal with the emotional stress, but I fear that this is a far deeper problem than a few uncaring teachers. The military culture has become downright hostile to non-Christian faith expressions, often exploiting loopholes to keep Pagans (and other faiths) from gaining legitmacy and equal treatment. It wasn’t simply because of Bush that the veteran Pentacle quest took so long to achieve victory. I don’t know if there’s an easy solution to this problem, but one can hope that things will open up a bit under the Obama administration.

Darin Najor, who assulted a teacher and threatened to set her on fire for being a “witch” after she assigned the class to read “The Crucible”, is undergroing a competency hearing to see if he can stand trial.

Police said the assignment to read and discuss “The Crucible” apparently set Najor off. The teacher had been discussing the play in class for a while before she was assaulted. Najor questioned the teacher the day before the assault, police said, and she told him she didn’t believe in witchcraft and that the play was an allegory about persecution. The following day, Najor came up behind the teacher chanting what sounded like religious verses and poured water over her that he carried in a Gatorade bottle, Denmark said. Najor was also carrying a large barbecue lighter and told the teacher she was a witch who needed to be purified, police said. Najor ran from the room and the teacher and a security guard followed him outside where he was smoking a cigarette, Denmark said. The suspect ran at the teacher and said he was going to “burn the witch” when he was restrained by the guard, police said.

While Najor certainly seems delusional, one wonders where he got the idea that a witch needed to be purified by fire? It’s too bad this account doesn’t dig a bit into his background. What’s his home life like? What religious instruction did he receive? I would like to know these things, just in case the water-bottle was simply a trial run.

Speaking of innocent teachers and witches, a Texas man has finally been cleared of all charges after being accused of confining two girls to a classroom because he thought they were witches.

It has not been an easy three years for Jose Ramos. The 45-year-old Spanish teacher has been unemployed and under a felony indictment for most of that time, chafing against what he saw as an ongoing injustice he could not seem to clear. Some days, it was hard to tell what was worse: That he was being accused of confining two scared teenage girls to a classroom, or that the Rio Grande Valley thought he’d done it because he thought the girls were witches. On Thursday, prosecutors dropped the last of his criminal charges and, with an apologetic shrug from a county court-at-law judge whose children had been his students, Ramos was once again free, innocent and employable.

In the span of three years the truth slowly came out, the girl’s stories changed, and they no longer wanted to testify. In fact, it seems that it was Ramos who was trying to protect the girls from fellow classmates who accused the girls of casting malicious spells. The tragedy is that this man’s life and livelyhood were ruined while under the shadow of these charges. Resentful, he’s now looking for a job far away from the town in which he once worked.

The Independent gives a decidedly lukewarm review to Gary Lachman’s new book “Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen”, calling it “stodgy” and “uncontroversial”.

Gary Lachman has certainly done his research. This history of how the occult has influenced national politics – and not just wacky, fascist politics but mainstream and progressive political movements too … It could be fascinating, but the prose is stodgy, and the actual aims of these secret societies, where revealed, are often uncontroversial and bland – to create a better world, that sort of thing. It’s never entirely clear whether Lachman believes that occult study is a real means of acquiring knowledge, providing an alternative to “the hard-nosed empirical approach [of] science”. This book offers no evidence that it is; but then doubts are raised about Lachman’s commitment to rationality when he claims that “in 1960, aliens took an interest in US politics and backed a candidate for the presidency”.

For more on Lachman’s work (which tends toward the sensationalistic), you should check out this (slightly edited) excerpt from “Politics and the Occult”.

How did ancient Greeks choose their temple locations? According to Gregory J. Retallack of the University of Oregon in Eugene, it’s all about the soil.

No clear pattern emerged until he turned to the gods and goddesses. It was then that he discovered a robust link between the soil on which a temple stood and the deity worshiped there. For example, Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility, and Dionysos, the god of wine, both were venerated on fertile, well-structured soils called Xerolls, which are ideal for grain cultivation. Artemis, the virgin huntress, and her brother Apollo, the god of light and the Sun, were worshiped in rocky Orthent and Xerept soils suitable only for nomadic herding. And maritime deities, such as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Poseidon, the sea god, were revered on Calcid soils on coastal terraces too dry for agriculture. The pattern suggests that the deities’ cults were based on livelihood as much as on religion. And, says Retallack, temple builders may have chosen sites to make the deities feel at home.

So if you’re looking to build a new Pagan temple, better check out the local dirt first.

In a final note, mega-rockstars U2 may be dedicated Christians, but that hasn’t stopped them from wondering if the patriarchy is all its cracked up to be.

“[The song "Get On Your Boots" is] based around the idea that men have f****d things up so badly, politically, economically and socially that it’s really time we handed things over to women.”

You can see the video for the song, here. Careful guys, you keep this sort of sentiment up, and you might lose some of your ardent patriarchy-loving Christian followers (but who knows, you might also gain some goddess-lovers to replace them).

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

A new small piece of information has trickled out concerning the alleged discriminatory firing of a University of Nebraska employee for being a Witch. According to an AP article run by WNCT in North Carolina, the woman identifies as part of Reclaiming.

“The lawsuit, filed by a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe, states that she was hired in February 2007 and was satisfactory in her performance. But once her employer discovered she was a witch, the lawsuit says the “plaintiff was terminated from her position, and was replaced by a non-witch.“ The woman says in the lawsuit that she’s using a pseudonym to protect herself and her family from potential discrimination from the public or other employers. The lawsuit says, ‘Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft is her religion.’”

As I said in my initial post on this matter, this looks like a legit grievance. The Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission has ruled that Ms Doe’s rights were violated, and I can’t imagine them backing her claims lightly. I’ll post more on this issue as it develops.

Looks like the University of Nebraska is going to be facing some bad publicity in the coming months. A resident of Lincoln Nebraska has filed a lawsuit against the university for allegedly firing her for being a Pagan.

“The lawsuit was filed earlier this month by a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe. The filing says the woman, who practices witchcraft as her religion, was hired by the university in February 2007 to direct a youth program. She was fired when it was discovered that she was a witch.”

Obviously some are going to be skeptical, what if she was simply fired for poor performance or incompetence? But according to the scant information provided so far, it looks like “Jane Doe” may have a substantial case here.

“The woman has already filed a complaint with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission, which ruled that her rights were violated because of religion discrimination.”

If the NEOC says she has a case, then I very much doubt this is a frivolous action. Now if only we could get some more information. If any Nebraskan Pagans know any background information on this case (that doesn’t compromise the identity of “Jane Doe”), feel free to send me an e-mail or leave a comment on this post.

I don’t know if you had heard, but apparently there is a growing and diverse religious movement that is often labeled “Paganism”, and Halloween is, like, a major holiday for many of them. There are months here at The Wild Hunt where hunting down stories is a chore, then October rolls around and I have far too much to appropriately sum up without doing a “news of note” every other day (a prospect I don’t especially relish, I prefer the more sedate once-a-week or so schedule its been on). Let me just assure you that I’m doing my best to stay on top of things, and delivering what I think are the most interesting picks of this journalistic harvest.

Having said all that, let’s do a quick look at the flood of Halloween/Samhain stories involving Pagans. A mix of that runs from the remedial to the sublime. Featuring well-known Pagans, assorted experts and academics, and cast of unknown locals getting their first taste of press attention.

Reuters looks at a Samhain celebration in Milan, Italy, and marvels at the explosive growth of modern Paganism there.

“Organizers say numbers are elusive, but using sources like mailing lists, event registration and journal subscriptions, they place their ranks at between 2,000 and 10,000. The founder of Milan’s Circle of the Crossroads, Davide Marre, remembers when his group numbered “four cats,” an expression for virtually nobody. Six years later, he has 200 members, with conferences, study groups, a magazine, a book, even a monthly bar fest called the Witches’ Café.”

Interestingly, not a single mention of Stregheria, and one of the Pagans they do talk to seems to identify as Celtic. Is British Paganism gaining more traction in Italy than Italian-American Paganism? The piece also sources an article by Francesca Howell from The Pomegranate.

The North Wind (Northern Michigan’s student paper) covers an appearance by Pagan author and NPR journalist Margot Adler, who discusses the growth of the modern Pagan movement since the 60s and 70s.

“Adler kicked off her presentation by telling a humorous anecdote about her first visit to Michigan in the 1980s to appear on a Detroit morning show. Adler explained that she took extra care to look good for the television cameras and had cut herself shaving as she prepared for the event. At the end of the television appearence the audience was allowed to ask questions. ‘A question that came up from the audience was ‘Is that mark on your leg from some ritual?’ I had to explain that, I had just cut myself shaving while getting ready.’”

The headline proclaims that Paganism “continues to expand”, but nothing in the article follows up on that claim. Guess you have to take what you can get when dealing with student papers. The anecdote was good though.

A senior at the Pinkerton Academy has been barred from giving a planned talk on Wicca for the schools “diversity week” after complaints from parents (even though other religiously-themed talks are going forward).

“Pinkerton senior Jerica Haynes may not be able to give the presentation she prepared about the religion of Wicca during Diversity Week this year, but she is still hopeful she can dispel some myths about what it means to be a modern-day practicing witch … Robin Perrin, director of relations management for Pinkerton, said several parents called the school to complain that the presentation was inappropriate. Perrin said the issue for parents was that whole classes sign up for some Diversity Week presentations, and there was a fear that the Wicca presentation would be mandatory for students whose class signed up to attend the presentation.”

The school is currently planning to allow her to do it next week after school, after first performing her talk for a “diversity committee”. Haynes, who is a third-generation Witch, appears to be going along with this, and the school should thank its lucky stars she is. There is certainly grounds here for some sort of discrimination-based lawsuit.

Samhain is usually time for a flood of “meet the Pagans” type articles, and this year won’t disappoint. Burnaby Now interviews Jennifer Thrasher owner of Grimoire’s Books, The Spectator interviews Eau Claire resident Trae Dorn (and cites James Sharpe), The Skyline View attended a talk by Starhawk, The Jambar interviews Kyle Metzger and Torrey Derda, the Boston Phoenix interviews several Pagan students at Boston University, and The Southern Voice interviews Ken “Lord Thespis” Gunter (a member of Lady Sintana’s church).

“Wicca includes the study, respect and celebration of the ebb and flow between male and female, Gunter adds, noting the moon represents the female, while the sun represents the male. Wicca is also a matriarchal religion, where women are held typically in higher regard than male members. There is also room for transgender Wiccans, Gunter says. “We had a transgender woman as a member once and she was a priestess. She lived her life as a woman, so it was simple,” he says.”

The subtitle of this article? Why “Halloween means much more than costumes and candy” of course. If you think that was a lot of articles (and I probably didn’t get all of them), keep in mind we have another week of news stories to go before we hit October 31st.

Finally, I wanted to quickly mention two other articles you might enjoy, The Christian Post gives an unintentional guide to getting your house egged on Halloween night, and VPR marks the passing of Tom “Mr. Halloween” Fagan, founder of Rutland, Vermont’s famous annual Halloween parade, and a man who has appeared as himself in several comic books over the years.

“Tom Fagan was a reporter for the Rutland Herald when he encouraged the city’s recreation department to create the goulish celebration back in 1959. Fagan was crazy about comic books and he worked them into the parade, often dressing up as Batman. He was friends with many comic book writers and he encouraged them to come to Rutland, dress up in costume and appear with him in the parade. In the 1970s, Rutland’s Halloween parade achieved a degree of fame when it was used as the setting of a number of superhero comic books, published by both DC and Marvel. Tom Fagan was himself featured as a character in a number of these stories, usually depicted as an acquaintance of the lead character.”

He will, no doubt, be at his beloved Halloween parade in spirit.

That is all for now, have a great day!

A Cabot Witch* (The Rev. Rapid Cabot Freeman) is claiming religious discrimination in Connecticut after his local library canceled a planned Samhain ritual/presentation in their public community room.

“Freeman, who said he reserved the room four months ago with librarian Barbaranne Warner, and who has been advertising the party on his public access television show – “The Witching Hour” – for the past six weeks, said he believes it is a matter of religious discrimination. He said he’d been planning the appearance since he spoke at the library about witchcraft last year and members of the audience asked him to give a demonstration. While the town has allowed everything there from Christmas parties to christenings, he said, they are banning him because he’s a pagan.”

The event, while approved by the president of the Friends of Sprague Public Library, was nixed by the library’s First Selectman, Catherine Osten (after complaints by board of trustees members), on the grounds that Freeman didn’t follow proper procedure to reserve the space.

“…Osten said, because the event was to be held not in the library proper but in the town community room upstairs, those planning it had to get a permit from her office to use the room. Since no one had sought a permit, or paid the $50 rental fee and the $50 cleaning deposit, she said, there would be no witchcraft there on Halloween. ‘This is about someone that doesn’t want to follow process,” Osten said. “They’ve refused to apply for the room, and they want me to say OK. Have we denied it? No, because it hasn’t been presented to us to deny.’”

This situation has since led to a bitter falling out between Osten and Linda Puetz, president of the Friends of Sprague Public Library. It also led to Freeman losing the rhetorical upper hand by describing Catherin Osten’s decision as “Hitleresque”. Was Osten being discriminatory? Most likely, but she was able to hide behind the rules and regulations due to Freeman and Puetz not following proper procedure. At this point, their only recourse seems to be the court of public opinion. It is possible that Osten will back down under the threat of negative publicity due to this article, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. This whole controversy seems to be a perfect storm of discrimination, poor communication within the library, and poor planning.

* There seems to be some confusion as to whether Freeman is still within the Cabot tradition or not. On his MySpace page he claims that he has left the Cabot tradition and started his own path (called “First Blood”). But that may be old information, and things could be patched up between them for all I know. For more about Freeman, and his public access TV show, head over to this page (warning: eye-straining MySpace page).

Did restaurateur Bob Wolf, co-founder of the eco-awareness organization The Green Train, fire a volunteer for being a Pagan? That is the accusation being made over at The Nashville Scene’s blog.

“Nashville’s Green Train, an eco-educational non-profit run by Merle Haggard and restaurateur Bob Wolf, had a witch in its ranks until recently. Or, to be more precise, a pagan. Not the kind historically drawn and quartered or burned at the stake, but rather the contemporary tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, vegan variety. That was until Wolf charged this Wiccan ordained minister, Susan Hunter, with creating Green Train’s MySpace page. The personal networking catastrophe that followed– replete with online earthy salutations and pentagrams–saw Hunter canned in spectacular fashion back in mid-September. She’s crying discriminatory foul.”

Apparently Hunter, after creating the organization’s MySpace page, did what almost all MySpacers do, invite people she knew to “friend” the organization. Anyone familiar with the ways of MySpace can guess what happened next.

“Hunter sent out “friend invitations” to 40 of her friends who also happened to be earth-loving hippies and pagans of various stripes. When the messages started flowing in—“Blessed be” or “Faerie blessings,” usually accompanied by a pentagram and pictures of ivory-skinned ladies identifying themselves exotically as Asterope Morgaine and Feryia—Hunter says Wolf blew a gasket, ordering that all pentagrams be deleted. She says she deleted the Christian symbols too, out of spite before being summarily dismissed.”

So is telling a Pagan volunteer to delete only Pagan symbols, and then firing her when she deletes all the religious symbols, discriminatory behavior? Susan Hunter seems to think so.

“‘It’s my opinion that I was fired for religious reasons,’ she said. Wolf claims Hunter was just a volunteer. But perhaps the most stinging accusation hurled by Hunter was this: ‘The guy doesn’t even recycle.’”

Wolf insists this is much ado over nothing, and that Hunter “got her feelings hurt” and is now “witch-hunting” him in retaliation. Wolf says he has nothing against Pagans, and even attended a Pagan Pride Day festival and bought Hunter a book.

“This is a witch hunt by somebody who got her feelings hurt,” Wolf said, though the old cliché would seem to be reversed here. “I don’t have a problem with people’s opinions. I even went to a pagan day festival; we bought her a pagan bible.”

So, discrimination or misunderstanding? Something tells me that lawyers will soon be hired to figure it out.