Now someone identifying themselves as one of the preachers involved in the incident has posted a comment on my original blog entry dealing with the case. “Curt” starts off by explaining that true Christians won’t act meek or peaceful. They embody a vengeful “Jehovah” who “hates” the wicked when they go out to minister.

“I am one of the “intimidating” street preachers that was at Richmond park. Look, you all have gotten your views on Christianity from TV and from 95% of folks out there that don’t know their Bibles “from a hole in the ground”. The devils have made The Lord Jesus Christ into some limp-wristed, effeminate puke that just wants us to love the wicked that hates righteousness. No, Jesus never changed from being the Jehovah God of the old testiment. He still hates the wicked that rejects Him and is ‘angry with the wicked every day’.”

He then claims it wasn’t his fault if people were intimidated.

“And as far as free speech goes in this nation, I wouldn’t be in favor for taking away your freedoms as much as I wouldn’t want you to take my freedom to serve God. If you want to take my freedom away, then you better not complain when your freedom goes away too. P.S. If any of you felt intimidated, etc. That was not our purpose or our desire but if God Himself wants you to be intimidated, it’s probably because you all have rejected His only offer of forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
We’re merely the messengers…”

Of course what does his “freedom to serve God” mean in this context? Does it mean circling people and forcing them to cry, as one commenter claims happened? “Curt” seems to believe that if you felt intimidated, it wasn’t them intimidating you, it was God doing the dirty work. They are, of course, simply instruments of the Lord’s work. I’m surprised the lawyers handling this case would allow “Curt” to post something like this. It certainly falls outside the story presented to the court.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/02/god-wants-you-to-be-intimidated.html/feed 1 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/02/updates-on-ongoing-stories.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/02/updates-on-ongoing-stories.html#comments Fri, 02 Feb 2007 16:15:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/02/updates-on-ongoing-stories.html Some quick updates on stories covered by this blog.

The Veteran Pentacle Quest: The suit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is going forward and will be heard this summer despite more stonewalling efforts from the VA.

“The VA argued in a motion filed Jan. 19 with the U.S. District Court in Madison that the lawsuit should be put on hold until after the department finalized its new rules related to accepting new grave marker symbols. That process could take up to 12 months but the VA would make a decision on the Wiccan request within a month after the process ended, the government’s motion said. The Wiccans’ attorney objected, arguing that nothing commits the VA to finalize its rules within that time frame, or take up the Wiccan request at all.”

Luckily the judge was having none of it, and has set the trial for June 29. The VA has issued no statements regarding their move to delay the trial, and have not returned requests for comment. To catch up on the history of this case, check out Circle Sanctuary’s page devoted to the issue.

The Grand Rapids “Freedom To Harass Us” Case: The Grand Rapids Pagan Pride Coordinators have issued a public statement on the the suit filed by The Street Preachers’ Fellowship against the city of Grand Rapids. On the advice of their lawyer, they are keeping mum, and asking the Pagan community to not bother city officials in Grand Rapids.

“If we want to continue to host a Pagan Pride in Grand Rapids, we need to remain calm & wait until those items are needed. If this blows up, the city may change the way that they allow parks to run. A point to make here is this, the papers have not been filled with the courts yet & who knows, when a judge sees this, s/he may dismiss it on the spot. We are in contact with our attorney & we have been advised to not speak to anyone about this, so please, support us with the letters & do not, I repeat PLEASE DO NOT just start sending in letters to the press, city attorney or anyone else that I failed to mention.”

So it seems we won’t be getting any official word on the behavior of the Christians on that day. But a commenter going by the name of “Jenn” did post some details of the event, but without official confirmation I can’t speak to its veracity.

“…in this case they physically and verbily intimidated people there. Witnesses say a girl was circled and forced to tears. They were not simply coming around, handing out bibles and kindly asking for a moment of their time to discuss religion. They were there to start s**t.”

We’ll have to wait and see if the Christian group is able to spin this as a simple “free speech” case.

Tyra’s Witchcraft Adventure: Since the original post on the Tyra Banks “Witchcraft” episode, guests on the show are starting to come forward to publicly express their displeasure with how the show was handled. “White Witch” and model Wrenna Monet has posted her experiences on her MySpace blog.

“Doing the Tyra Banks Show I thought it would bring a positive light on my religion and how it is viewed….NOT! Knowing she was a Christian, I didn’t take it into consideration that she would be just as judgmental as most people that do not understand the ways we follow, which is a peaceful way of living. Tyra provided a perfect example of how we’re viewed and was completely biased to the whole thing which I found disrespectful!”

My sympathies go out to all involved, perhaps Tyra will revisit the issue at some point and allow her former guests a chance to clarify their views without the born-again Christian chaser. The show’s blog has gotten nearly 400 comments (mostly negative) concerning the Witchcraft episode, it remains to be seen if Tyra or a representative from the show will issue any kind of statement regarding their treatment of modern Pagans.

In a final note, it seems Beliefnet has decided that Pagans don’t get into Heaven. Blog Heaven that is. Chas Clifton’s Pagan blog has been a part of Beliefnet’s religion blog aggregator “Blog Heaven” since its inception. Now it has mysteriously disappeared.

“No one from BeliefNet informed me that my blog was given the boot; I just happened to notice. When I asked what was going on, someone named Tim Hayne, editorial project manager, said that it was unintentional and tried to make it look like it was my fault for changing something at this end…Ten days have gone by, but nothing has changed. You won’t find Letter From Hardscrabble Creek in Blog Heaven….But the URL of my site feed has not changed. So I have to wonder if someone at the supposedly interfaith BeliefNet site just cannot stomach an outspokenly Pagan blog. It’s their site and they can run it the way that they want. But why can’t they be honest?”

Chas Clifton’s blog was the only Pagan entry. The aggregator is now almost completely dominated by monotheist traditions (not even a Buddhist blog!). I would urge all my readers to write to Beliefnet (politely) and ask for the return of Chas Clifton’s blog (and even better to include more diversity in their aggregator). There are several vibrant and informative blogs coming from Pagans and other minority religions, it shouldn’t cost Beliefnet anything to be more inclusive on a simple aggregator.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/02/updates-on-ongoing-stories.html/feed 1 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/01/freedom-to-harrass-us.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/01/freedom-to-harrass-us.html#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:44:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/01/the-freedom-to-harass-us.html Where does “free speech” end? Does free speech mean the freedom for a group of Christians to come bearing placards and a soapbox and engage in long harangues towards Pagans engaging in a legally permitted assembly? That will be the question as a group of Christian evangelists have filed suit against the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan after being told to disperse from the public park where the annual Grand Rapids Pagan Pride Day was being held.

“On Sept. 23, Ickes and others attempted to address attendees of the Pagan Pride Festival at Richmond Hills Park. The group spoke using a small wooden platform but did not use amplification equipment. A Grand Rapids Police sergeant informed Ickes that a permit was required for their activities and claimed they were disturbing the peace. One group member was forcefully pulled from the platform by a second sergeant, handcuffed, and detained in the back of a police vehicle. One of the officers acknowledged to Ickes that an attempt to obtain a permit likely would have been denied by city officials to avoid “problems” caused by differing viewpoints between the group and festival attendees. Further, the officer admitted the festival did not have exclusive use of the park. Under continued threat of arrest, the group decided to leave the area.”

The complaint is an interesting read. In it, Ickes and his fellow preachers paint themselves as polite, orderly Christians hoping to share the good news.

“On Saturday, September 23, 2006, Ickes, along with a group of 7 others, went to Richmond Hills Park in Grand Rapids to speak with and preach to the crowd gathered for the Pagan Pride Festival at approximately 11:15 a.m. Mr. Ickes and others in his group also held Bibles and signs with messages of sin and God’s forgiveness. After dialogging with individual attendees at the festival, some SPF members began taking turns preaching to the crowd while standing atop a small wooden platform.”

Sounds so peaceful and innocent! How could anyone have complained! But if you read their web site, it becomes clear that these aren’t peaceful messengers for the brotherhood in Christ.

“The Street Preachers’ Fellowship traveled again to the Nation’s capital to preach to the NOW Parade of rebellious women, made up of 250,000 witches, whores, wackos and weight lifters who failed at being women. No commentary is needed to describe the ridiculous onslaught of failed feminism that marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. trying to be anything but a “Lady”… And while 99% of all the pastors in and around the nation’s capital did nothing, 250,000 of the liberal swine of female rebellion paraded down the middle of the streets of D.C., cursing, swearing, taking God’s name in vain, stripping their clothes off, and routinely smelling up the nation’s capital with their filthiness, whoredom and rebellion. With riot police in full body armor standing between, the SPF preachers confronted the mass of rebellious, loud mouthed riff raff that has produced the largest nation of sodomites the world has ever known.”

With a message like that I can’t imagine why the Pagan Pride organizers called the cops. While the Alliance Defense Fund tries to paint these men as free speech casualties, the actual law of Grand Rapids Michigan was against them.

“No person shall conduct or participate in any business activity, bazaar, sale, swap meet, barter activity or other activity of a commercial nature except pursuant to a permit issued by the Director of Parks and Recreation. No group political meetings or functions, religious meetings, public speeches, concerts, or other similar activities shall be held within a public park except pursuant to a permit issued by the Director of Parks and Recreation. A permit for such activities shall be issued by the Director of Parks and Recreation or his/her designee with reasonable restrictions only with regard to the time, place and manner of activity to be conducted.”

In other words, an organized Christian “religious meeting” can’t intrude on an already permitted and scheduled Pagan “religious meeting” on city property without a permit. If Ickes, the Street Preachers Fellowship, and the Alliance Defense Fund were to win this case, Christian groups in Grand Rapids would be allowed to set up next to Pagan events with no prior warning and “evangelize” (ie harass and intimidate) as much as they wanted. Of course it would also allow for any group to set up next to another in a public park so long as they didn’t physically attack them. So the Klan would be able to “peacefully” set up next to a Martin Luther King day celebration, and neo-Nazis could send their “message” to a Jewish festival so long as they don’t use electronic amplification.

While some free speech absolutists would agree to such a proposition, such a reality would create a larger “chilling effect” than preventing opposing groups to pounce on an already permitted public event. It would mean that no group could use a public space without fear of that event being disrupted by the “free speech” of their idealogical opponents. If free speech doesn’t allow someone to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, should it allow Christians to yell “hellfire” at a peaceful Pagan gathering?

ADDENDUM: Jerry Zarley at the Z’s Consciousness blog has found a court case that has several elements pertaining to this one.

“issued permits can be enforced to protect the permitted message even if this excludes other messages. This enforces the very purpose behind permitting schemes – to enable the expression of a particular message. In other words, an administrative permit scheme must be capable of enforcement.”

You can read the full opinion of the court, here.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/01/freedom-to-harrass-us.html/feed 3