Editorial
Editorial: Espinoza vs. Montana would undermine the First Amendment
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Weekend Editor Eric O. Scott discusses the effect Espinoza vs. Montana would have on religious minorities if affirmed by the US Supreme Court.
Paganism
Pagan Community Reacts to Historic SCOTUS Rulings on Same-Sex Marriage
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Today the Supreme Court of the United States handed down rulings on United States v. Windsor, which challenged the constitutionality of DOMA, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which centered on California’s Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that banned legal same-sex marriages. In short, both rulings are seen as victories for proponents of marriage equality, and for clergy who perform same-sex marriages. The first ruling this morning from the Supreme Court was on the matter of DOMA, and it was ruled unconstitutional in a 5-4 vote. Here’s SCOTUSblog’s “Plain English” take on the ruling. “The federal Defense of Marriage Act defines “marriage,” for purposes of over a thousand federal laws and programs, as a union between a man and a woman only.
Paganism
Happy 4th of July
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“Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.” – Thomas Jefferson, quoting John Locke
Hail to the pen and muse of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence! Hail to those who’ve honored the true spirit of our founding documents, who defended us with arms, who challenged us with nonviolence, and reminded us of our true nature through art and rebellion. “…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…” – Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796 (signed by President John Adams)
Let us not forget that the United States was shaped by indigenous Native religions, Transcendentalism, Deism, Freemasonry, and free-thinking products of the Enlightenment, just as it was shaped by Christianity. Let us not forget the pre-Christian “pagan” roots of our democracy, our republic. “Every president, every politician, who takes the oath to uphold our Constitution, are taking an oath that the founders knew would allow for men and women of every faith (or even no faith) to someday take their place among our leadership. They are taking an oath on a document crafted by men who are products of the Enlightenment, whose thinkers looked to ancient pagan thinkers, politicians, and philosophers for wisdom and guidance, unencumbered by the filter of the Christian church.
Paganism
Our “Pagan” President and our Pagan Democracy
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Earlier this month, Professor Anouar Majid, author of “We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and Other Minorities”, wrote a guest column for Informed Comment. In this column, Majid noted that “democracy and republicanism arose in pagan, polytheistic cultures, ones whose people could live with many gods.” In Majid’s mind, no culture can truly embrace and enjoy the values of democracy, of representative government, without also embracing the “religious pluralism and cultural diversity” inherent in this political model’s building blocks. The Founding Fathers of the United States, from the beginning, were quite cognizant of the fact that the republic they were building would include protections for a diverse religious pluralism that could even encompass a revived polytheism. “The exclusion of religious tests is by many thought dangerous and impolitic.They suppose that if there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, and Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators and representatives might all be pagans.
News
Harassment in Alcester and other Pagan News of Note
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Top Story: The harassment of Pagans by intolerant neighbors isn’t anything new, but it’s rare to hear on-the-record confirmation of that hostility from prominent citizens. The Sunday Mercury reports on the plight of Albion and Raven, owners of the The Whispering Witch in Alcester, a small market town in England. Opened 15 months ago, Albion and Raven claim to have gotten threatening letters, and even had a bundle of wood stacked in front of the shop’s door one morning, seemingly to imply that they should be burned. After talking to the couple, The Sunday Mercury interviews a local Baptist Reverend, and a member of the church who’s a former mayor of Alcester, and they seem to corroborate the hostility, though stop short of endorsing harassment. Reverend Alistair Aird, from Alcester Baptist Church, condemned those behind the attacks but added: “My impression is that people in the town don’t feel that this is the kind of thing they want in Alcester.