The DesMoines Register does a great job illustrating why legalizing same-sex marriage isn’t only about gay rights, but the rights of religious minorities as well. The paper profiles Toni Heard and Michelle McBride, a Nebraskan couple who were handfasted in a Wiccan ceremony two years ago, but are now hoping to gain legal recognition thanks to the Iowa state Supreme Court.

“Kelly McBride’s eyes filled with tears. Both her daughter and Heard had been victims of crimes as youngsters and only started healing when they found each other, she said. “They found love – and then the state told them they couldn’t show their love,” Kelly McBride said. “Now they can.” The couple live with Kelly McBride and her son, Kegan, 18, who was also in tow as a witness Monday. Heard, 26, and Michelle McBride met on school bus No. 2 11 years ago. They both sang in the high school chorus. Heard was in foster care. When she aged out of the system, she moved into the McBride home. In 2007, Heard and Michelle McBride were married in the Wiccan religion but wanted to marry in Iowa for legal reasons. The marriage isn’t recognized in Nebraska, however.”

The words “religious freedom” get thrown around a lot. Opponents of same-sex marriage like to scare people into believing that allowing gays to marry will somehow limit theirs, even though no real proof of that has emerged. Meanwhile, religious groups who do bless, honor, and perform same-sex unions are told that their rites aren’t legally valid. Now a lack of legal recognition might not make the rite any less blessed or valid in the eyes of their co-religionists, but it does complicate things if they want our government on the state or national level to also acknowledge that they are a joined couple and deserving of the same legal privileges afforded opposite-sex unions. That couple from Nebraska, married in a neighboring state, will most likely have to go to court if they want their own union recognized. Just think, thousands of dollars in lawyers fees just to ensure hospital visitation or inheritance, and considering Nebraska’s attitudes towards gays in the past there’s no guarantee of success.

The solutions are simple. Either grant same-sex couples the same legal marriage rites as opposite-sex couples, or completely remove “marriage” from the purview of governmental oversight. Create a one-size-fits-all civil union and let the individual churches, synagogues, circles, groves, and fellowships decide who can or can’t marry within their tradition. Either way, opponents of same-sex marriage are on the losing side of history. They can spend decades raging at a changing world, spreading fear and misinformation, or they can accept that imposing their uniform morality on others isn’t just or merciful. In the meantime, Pagan clergy all across this nation will continue to bless same-sex marriages, and hope for a day when the entire nation will give our rites the same consideration that other religions already receive.

The Sioux City Journal is currently running coverage of Lawrence Harris’s murder trial. Harris is accused of first degree murder in the deaths of his two young step-daughters, which he said was the result of a “spell gone bad”. The trial will determine if these were premeditated killings, or if Harris was clinically insane during the murders.

Lawrence Douglas Harris was under pressure, unmedicated and trying to find a way to gain control of his life when he attempted to cast a spell in the basement of his house the day his stepdaughters were killed, his attorney told jurors in his trial today. In a packed courtroom with tight security, Assistant Public Defender Mike Williams delivered his opening statements, saying his client was insane that day. “Not just a little psychotic here and there. Not just a little disturbed, but insane,” Williams said.

The double-murder of two young children would be enough to make this case a media circus, add in the fact that Harris had a long-running fascination with the occult, Paganism, and Satanism, and you have all the ingredients for sheer pandemonium (both journalistically and in the court room). So it is a lucky thing that the expert witness on Wicca and Paganism called to the stands was Pagan scholar Helen A. Berger, author of “A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States”, and co-author of “Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States”.

Also testifying for the defense, Helen Berger, a sociology professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, explained something of Wicca, satanism and paganism and said Wicca is not about violence and killing. She said Wiccans believe that anything they do, good or bad, comes back to them threefold … During cross-examination of Berger, Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Mark Campbell produced an inverted pentagram that was found with Harris’ ritual items in the basement. “The Satanic Bible” refers to use of an inverted pentagram during rituals. Berger said the symbol is not part of Wiccan practices.

Berger was also one of the first experts to be interviewed by the Sioux City Journal in the initial wake of the killings. We can feel very lucky that Berger is the voice for Paganism in this trial, and not, say, one of the old “Satanic Panic” experts still hanging around. For full transcripts of the proceedings, go to the Sioux City Journal’s special page devoted to the trial (I really must commend the paper’s even-keeled and extensive coverage here). As for Harris, since Iowa doesn’t have the death penalty, he’s looking towards a lifetime of confinement, either in a cell or an institution. I’ll leave it to the jury to decide which one of these he deserves.

Does religion harm or heal? Believers and skeptics have long argued over the benefits and drawbacks regarding a belief in unseen forces and powers for ages. Confusing the issue further are those times when faith commingles with mental illness and breeds murderers and monsters. Pagan religions and other minority faiths are hardly immune from these tragedies. One year ago Lawrence Douglas Harris, who had been involved in modern Paganism (and later Satanism), killed his two young step-daughters in what he called a spell that “had gone bad”. On the anniversary of these tragic slayings, the Sioux City Journal provides a narrative of that fateful day from Marla Stroman, the mother of the two girls.

At the house, police immediately begin questioning Larry, who tells them he was practicing witchcraft. The girls died, he tells them, while he was casting a spell that “had gone bad” and that “could have had severe consequences.” There’s blood on his hands. In the basement, officers find candles, Larry’s ritual knife, stained with DNA from one of the girls, a symbol of Baphomet, representing Satan and believed to have occult power, bells and an amulet with an inverted pentagram — all items used in rituals described in “The Satanic Bible.” Larry tells police he has a spell notebook in his and Marla’s bedroom closet. The notebook contains drawings from the book “Pagan Ways,” references found in the occult fiction book “Necronomicom” and page numbers corresponding to “The Satanic Bible,” including one specific spell … Larry tells police he was possessed by Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and change.

Harris, who had a history of self-harm, social isolation, and mental illness, had stopped taking his medications in the lead-up to that horrific day, and had become threatening and scary. Shortly after the murders, journalists interviewed a variety of “experts” (from local Wiccans to Mega-Church pastors) to get a handle on why this happened, but none of them could really satisfy a public hungry for answers. In the end, mental illness doesn’t have to follow rules, be logically consistent, or provide a “good reason” for why those afflicted do the things they do. Once a mind has completely broken from reality, anything can be twisted (Bibles, Korans, books on Wicca, books on Satanism) into providing a road-map for their subsequent deeds. The mind, when turned towards such unrestrained violence, is like an opportunistic infection. Grabbing at any nearby “host” to provide it motivation.

If these psychotic breaks involving religion are ultimately inconclusive in answering the question of religion being harmful, can religion, specifically Pagan religion, heal? That seems to be a part of the questions involving a convicted murderer in the UK. Twenty five years ago Randall Lee McArthur killed another man in a drug-fueled rampage and was sentenced to a 25-to-life prison term. He  was recently denied bail despite claims that he is a reformed man.

Randall Lee McArthur says it’s time he was paroled. “I was a kid. I was irresponsible,” former Marysville resident McArthur, 44, told the state Board of Prison Terms about the 1982 murder of Bradford Lee Howland, 26, of Olivehurst. “I was wild, you know. I was out for myself.” McArthur contends he now poses no threat to the public if released from prison. But a filing Friday in the Yuba County Superior Court by the state Attorney General’s Office agrees with the prison board’s decision to deny parole for McArthur, sentenced in 1983 to a term of 25 years to life. He remains a danger to the public because of the nature of the murder along Forty Mile Road — “shooting a helpless, unarmed victim,” the state Attorney General’s Office said.

Part of McArthur’s process of reform has apparantly included the study and practice of Wicca, an aspect of his life that gained scrutiny at his parole-board hearing.

McArthur said he is pursuing a college degree in ancient religions in correspondence courses with the New Mexico Institute of Spiritual Studies and that his own beliefs involve Wicca, an ancient, Pagan-based religion. A member of the state prison board, noting McArthur’s references to Wicca along with Druidism, said some people view them as evil religions. McArthur was asked if he was discovering something different. McArthur responded in the affirmative, describing Wicca as a nature-based religion closer to Native American culture and traditions.

Was his adherence to Wicca a point in his favor, or used as a strike against him? Can the study of Pagan religion improve the moral compass of a murderer? Would you feel comfortable living next to Mr. McArthur should he be released? Why or why not? Should the study of religion even factor into it, should the nature of the murder, as the Attorney General’s Office attests, preclude him ever being paroled? Religion has long been used as proof of a criminal’s reformation, perhaps we should just acknowledge that the eternal questions of religion hurting or healing will always be somewhat subjective, and remove faith considerations from issues of conviction and parole altogether. There will always be murderers and madmen, and at times, especially as we continue to grow, they will be Pagan in some for or another.  Better to acknowledge that, and continue to push for a truly equal and secular justice system free from bias for or against religon (or lack of religon).

The Iowa Independent reports that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against three Wiccan inmates who claimed that a three-hour time limit for their Samhain observances violated their rights to religious assembly.

Lawrence Gladson, Darrell Smith and Scott Howrey were incarcerated at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison when they claimed their right to religious assembly had been violated. The three inmates, all practitioners of the Wiccan religion, filed for injunctive relief and monetary damages, citing their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 had been violated when prison officials limited their Samhain observance to three hours … While the appeals court agreed that prisoners retain constitutional rights, it acknowledged that those rights are subject to limitations “in light of the needs of the penal system.” As such, it found no reason to believe that the three-hour window allotted for the Samhain observance posed a significant burden on those inmates who practiced Wicca.

The court’s opinion makes for interesting reading. The prisoners thought their agreement on observances allowed them an 8-hour “feast day” for Samhain, which was denied them on more than one occasion. The prison disagreed that this was the arrangement, and the prison chaplain actually contacted two Wiccan priestesses for advice on the matter.

In 2003, Chaplain Kopatich consulted with two Wiccan priestesses, one located in California and the other located in Des Moines, and inquired about the practice at other IDOC institutions. She testified that she attended a Samhain celebration at a community center in Des Moines and witnessed the entire event around October 2004. According to Chaplain Kopatich, the celebration lasted about three hours, perhaps a little longer. At the celebration, a priestess cleansed the area, cast a circle, and performed a ritual to honor ancestors. The participants danced, drummed, sang, and referenced the four directions. The ritual lasted just under two hours and refreshments were served afterwards.

So it seem that the prison, despite some minor problems discussed in the opinion, really did attempt to satisfy the religious needs of the inmates concerning the matter. This is all obviously rather new for prison officials and inmates in Iowa, the state’s prison system didn’t even acknowledge Wicca or any other Pagan faith until a lawsuit forced them to do so in 2002. No doubt the inmates are testing the boundaries of their newly-won freedoms. It would be interesting to know how long other faiths get for their high holidays, also three hours? More? Less? It should also be taken into account that Iowa’s corrections officials have had some serious problems with accomodating the needs of minority faiths in the past, so who knows what sorts of tensions underly this whole situation.

So it looks like we have a resolution in the case of an Iowa Pagan couple, some spray-painted Pagan symbols on their fence, and an unhappy neighbor. To briefly recap:

Ryle MacPebbles and his fence.

Now the charges of the markings being graffiti/vandalism have been dropped, and the MacPebbles can keep their Pagan markings so long as they purchase a sign permit.

“Ryle and Rachel MacPebbles were ordered to remove pagan and Celtic symbols from the fence in May. The couple appealed on the grounds of religious freedom. They were told this week that the symbols could stay, as long as the couple purchased a $35 sign permit. Deputy City Attorney Mark Godwin says city officials withdrew the graffiti complaint because the fence falls under a city law that governs signs, because the symbols were painted by the property owner and not vandals.”

So a clear win for religious expression here, and a reiteration that it isn’t “vandalism” if you want the markings there. Even more interesting is that most of the neighborhood doesn’t care a bit about the markings, and think the MacPebbles are good neighbors, except, it seems, for a single neighbor lady they accuse of spying on them (the one who reported the graffiti).

“MacPebbles put up the fence because he thought the next-door neighbor lady was spying on him. Then he took a can of black paint and sprayed pagan symbols on the side of the fence that she sees. To keep her from peeking in, he hung a tarp with more symbols above the fence … The neighbor lady, who wouldn’t give her name, believes she’s the aggrieved party. “It’s totally wrong what he’s doing to me,” she says. And the ground war continues. MacPebbles has put up a canvas and an $800 surveillance system to keep an eye on the enemy. The enemy points to the camera looking out over her driveway and says who’s spying on whom? She says he’s “torturing” her and turning the neighbors against her. I can’t speak for the torture, but the neighbors I talked with seem to be siding with him. MacPebbles seems like a decent enough guy, even with scary tattoos.”

So it looks like this all started as a neighborly feud, one that got vindictive after MacPebbles erected his fence to keep her out of his life. So barring some other conflicting ordinance, officials are still deciding if the fence falls within official sign size limits, it looks like the Pagan symbols get to stay. So the markings may be crude, but they aren’t illegal, and protected as personal and religious expression.

If you paint religious symbols on the outside of your own fence, are you a vandal? That seems to be the question being asked in Des Moines, Iowa, where a Pagan couple is fighting the city over what they believe are their rights to free religious expression.

Ryle MacPebbles and his fence.

The law in Des Moines on this matter seems rather broad, saying that any sort of writing on any sort of surface “not intended for such use” constitutes graffiti. Designed to combat gang-related “tagging”, it carries no exemptions for law-abiding homeowners expressing themselves. The MacPebbleses have appealed the remove notice, but city officials don’t seem very sympathetic.

“The MacPebbleses appealed the removal notice on Monday. “Don’t you think being a good neighbor you should have put them on your side of the fence?” asked hearing officer LeAnn Ducey, who will decide whether the symbols must be removed.”

The Des Moines couple are considering going to the ACLU if the appeal doesn’t go their way (and it doesn’t look like it will). What do you think? Is the couple in the wrong here? Would there have been a complaint if they had painted Christian symbols on the fence? Is the Pentacle and two runes graffiti or protected religious speech?

The press continues to report on the shocking murder of two young girls in Iowa. The prime suspect is the step-father who says that the deaths were the result of a “spell gone wrong”, and according to the mother of the girls, claims to adhere to some form of modern Paganism.

“The mother of two girls who were killed allegedly at the hands of their stepfather said he described himself as a pagan and practiced spells to keep those around him healthy and happy” … She said Lawrence Harris told her about his religious beliefs, but that she told him to “keep it out of the house.” “What he was doing is against my religion,” Marla Harris said. “I told him, ‘You take it elsewhere.’” She said that her husband did not introduce her to anyone else who shared his beliefs and that he kept his religion to himself.”

Other than the revelation that the step-father considered himself a Pagan, no new information has surfaced, which means that journalists gets some more time to talk to “experts” on Pagan religion.

“Self-described pagan Lawrence Harris is charged in the killings and reportedly told police a ’spell went bad.’ Leslie McQuaid, of Omaha, is an expert on Wicca and says don’t blame the religion for the acts of one individual. McQuaid says, ‘It’s disappointing not only for the faith that he professed to practice but also very tragic that parenting skills have become so poor that people who are in need of assistance wait too long to get professional help.’”

I’m not sure how detecting an oncoming psychotic break is related to poor parenting skills, are parents now supposed to be able to detect clinical warning signs of psychosis in family members? Even if the mother had concerns about her husband’s mental status, what are the chances that he had health insurance through his employer, and if he did, could they have afforded the $1000 deductible? Was the step-father, who may very well be suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia, supposed to realize he was losing touch with his own sanity?

That isn’t my only criticism of this “expert” interview. Is Leslie McQuaid herself a Wiccan? The article never specifies. What qualifies her as an expert on Wicca? How many years of experience does she have? What is her educational background (if any), how has she distinguished herself within the Pagan community as an authority on Wicca? I ask this because her commentary seems a bit odd.

“McQuaid says the suspect probably did not belong to a group because the acts he was performing are not highly-regarded in the Wiccan community. “It is so far out of the norm that he was probably practicing alone simply because pagans and Wicca who understand their faith and have been trained in the faith would have rejected his practices as being outrageous, just as probably a Catholic community would reject someone without any training in the priesthood who decided to perform an exorcism,” McQuaid says.”

I don’t want to be unfair, but we have no idea what his practices are, or what training he received. Often mental illness can run undetected, or be downplayed, even by close family. Even if he did belong to a group, that is no guarantee against a violent psychotic break, which can come on suddenly (nor do solitary practitioners live in a moral vacuum that would make actions like these any more likely). The sad truth is that some very well-trained religious people have done some pretty horrific things. Also, I would hesitate to place ritualized murder in the same moral continuum as rogue exorcists. As for the writer of this piece, saying that his practices would not be “highly-regarded”, makes it sound like he was simply uncouth and not the perpetrator of child-murder. I can’t think of a single Pagan who wouldn’t find such a thing horrific and completely beyond the pale.

The simple fact is that no amount of religious training can cure a severe mental illness. Up to the murders everyone thought he was sweet, normal, and loving towards his step-daughters. This man’s dabbling in spells and allegiance to a Pagan religion is no more responsible for this event, than Christianity is responsible for a man cutting off his own hand and subsequently microwaving it.

As for Pagan experts and the press, we have to be careful as this story develops to avoid guessing as to what really happened in this sad case (or why). The “Pagan” element should really be treated as a side-note to this man’s tragic break from reality. His alleged “Pagan-ness” has no direct bearing on this any more than if he was Christian or Jewish. Let us be careful that our eagerness to explain modern Paganism to the press doesn’t cloud what this story is really about.