There were Pagans in France before the parish priests
Re: Green pagans find way to White House funding and Dancing Druids
There were Pagans in France before the parish priests. You probably owe something to them.
I am offended that you would equate Pagan with horse thief. My belief system not only would tell me not to take another person’s horse but then instructs me that I would pay the consequences. There isn’t someone else paying the price for my bad judgment.
I do think the belittling of practices I read in the article is out of place. Many Pagans are upset at the actions of the Christian Church of many centuries ago and the continued bigotry on the part of some of the current day followers but I have never heard one belittle the practices outside of that. There may be some, but I’ve never heard them.
I personally agree that there shouldn’t be a pot of tax payer money for religious groups, but complaining about the Pagans attempting to access it sounds very much like saying “It’s fine to use as long as only the right groups get it.” The money shouldn’t be there in that form or it should be available no matter what religion the groups represent, otherwise the government puts itself in the position of choosing which religions are valid and which are not. There are precedents in place to make those choices and some Pagan groups meet those requirements (and not all groups claiming to be Christian would meet them either). To now change to the “only Christians welcome” that many of the conservatives on this continent are proposing goes against the purposes put forth by the constitutions of both Canada and the USA. Conservative is such a misnomer for such a radical group.
Conservative means to resist change and these people are trying to change the very heart of the experiment in freedom begun in England and evolving into the free societies of the world today. Not all are free, and not all those claiming to be free really are but many let a person choose based on their own conscience to worship whom, where, or what they may. The framers of the experiment in the US couldn’t easily decide what form that freedom should take but once it was worked out they decided that in order for the people to be truly free the government had to stay out of religion. I still agree with that yet the conservatives surrounding me label me a “liberal” for such a view. Since you labeled the dancing druid a “liberal” I assume you are an expert on such labels. Could you direct me to some conservatives that really are trying to preserve our freedom and not some that are using that label to hide a very radical liberal agenda?
Grey Wolfe
Utah
