Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in US

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Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in US

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Town of Greece vs. Galloway

For all of you who live in the States, today the Supreme Court has struck a serious blow against the separation of Church and State as we know it.

The Friendly Atheist explains the background of the court case:
Before 1999, the Town Board of Greece, New York opened its meetings with a moment of silence. After 1999, at the insistence of Town Supervisor John Auberger, the meetings began with a prayer. Nearly all of those prayers were delivered by Christian clergy members. Furthermore, unlike other city councils, there was no requirement that the prayers be inclusive or non-denominational.

How did town officials select speakers? They used a list of local religious leaders provided by the Greece Chamber of Commerce… which, not surprisingly, was full of Christians. City officials later argued that they didn’t purposely try to exclude atheists (and Pagans and Wiccans and Hindus, etc) — they just didn’t have them on the list.

From 1999 through 2007, Christians delivered every single invocation prayer.

In February of 2008, with the help of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, town residents Susan Galloway (who’s Jewish) and Linda Stephens (who’s an atheist) filed a lawsuit against the Town Board and Auberger. They argued that these prayers violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution and promoted Christianity.

Once they spoke up, the town invited non-Christians to deliver invocation prayers at four of its next twelve meetings. But starting in 2009 till mid-2010 (when the case was being decided), the invocations went back to being entirely Christian.
[1]

(Most notably, one of the 4 non-Christians who delivered the invocation prayers was a local Wiccan Priestess who invoked Apollo and Athena to guide the legislative body.)

Up until now, the general understanding of the Separation of Church and State is that the government may not "endorse a particular religious belief or take any action that could convey such a message of endorsement to the reasonable observer."[2] However, after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the Court's leading supporter of this view) was replaced by Justice Anthony Kennedy (a conservative judge appointed by Bush), this interpretation of the separation of church and state was in jeopardy of being overturned.

Today, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4, with Justice Kennedy as the swing vote in this case, that sectarian (i.e. prayers falling under one religion or another - for example, prayers that directly invoke Jesus Christ or a Christian God) invocations do not automatically violate the US Constitution, arguing that it does not constitute "religious coercion". Even though the Town of Greece's legislative body has opened with a Christian prayer about 98% of the time (yes, I did the math), this is constitutional because there was not an overt attempt to "intimidate, coerce, or convert nonbelievers" [3].

However, just because there isn't an overt attempt to proselytize doesn't mean that these prayers won't have a harmful effect on people of minority faiths. Sectarian prayers, "even if people of all faiths are allowed to say them, are undoubtedly coercive when the majority of speakers are Christians ... when you’re going to a city council meeting with a request, you don’t want to piss council members off by remaining seated during the prayers. So you stand, against your own conscience, to get on their good side." [4]

What does this mean for us Pagans who are a religious minority in this country?

I am not sure exactly how this ruling will affect separation of church and state outside of prayer in legislative bodies, but certainly this is a bad omen in general. But the general erosion of separation of church and state can have far-reaching implications on issues such as government funding of religious schools, government display of religious symbols (which we have discussed elsewhere on the forum), prayers and invocation in public schools, etc., and has the potential to severely harm the equal treatment of people of minority faiths.

- According to Gregg Lipper, a lawyer with Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
the decision allows local government bodies to give less attention to the interests of members of minority faiths and nonbelievers. Lipper said, "It definitely increases the leeway of local boards to impose majority religion" and was likely to be felt in majority Christian areas.
[3]

- "If the Court agrees (in a broad, far-reaching ruling), we’d be kissing goodbye to nearly six decades of Establishment Clause precedent. This would be disastrous, opening the door to Christian invocation prayers at city council meetings — and even school board meetings — all across the country." [1]

- "For the sort of people who believe America should be a “Christian nation,” today is a today to celebrate ... By the time this project finishes, it is unlikely that many limits will remain on overt government endorsements of religious faith. [2]

Sources

[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... nt-prayer/
[2] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... and-state/
[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/ ... FO20140505
[4] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... -galloway/

The Wild Hunt also has coverage of the court case, and I will try to keep this thread updated in the next few days.
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

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and this is why I wish i could go back in time and kill the man who decided to use Christianity to control his people *sigh* it just ticks me off to no end we were doing good with the whole dont push your religion on me i wont push my religion on you
Dont get me wrong i see how christianity is a religion (when put into the whole god and his angles aspect and everything) but what about the others like me.
im from the south and i hear enough about how im going to hell but to have to go to a function and listen to people make snide comments through a prayer is not something i enjoy (and trust me they do do it all the time :cry: )
and i mean its already illegal but they still do it a some things like games and stuff but this would allow them to do it everywhere that schools hold events and thats not something i myself look forward to at all in fact i might just stop going because of it because if i attend a school hosted week of fun like we usually do at my college im now going to have to listen to people who don't like my beliefs pray about me 'cus im standing near them.

:evilwitch: Really America, really. :evilwitch:

Ik IK just ignore them but what was to say I started praying myself then everyone things Im cursing them or look at me like im crazy. I cant win in that situation.
So i dont pray and I listen to them and just take it, thats not at all fair in any since of the word and isnt that what America is about, that everyone has the right to be happy.
I get it I really do, but you know this is just going to be over Christianity and nothing to do with the other religions, meaning were not all going to be represented, or understood and in the south that means "your causing a disturbance can you please leave" or "im sorry but your not allowed in" or just being made fun of through prayer something i dont feel like enduring


if this made no since im sorry i just had to get this off my chest after reading your post i cant believe that the courts who are suposs to protect us are really going to let something that has such a big impact on the way people treat us pass. to alot it might seem small and insignificance, they just get to pray now, but when you alow something small like that even bigger changes happen, and that small thing can turn into a big one when you allow extrema people the ability to be extrema.
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

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and this is why I wish i could go back in time and kill the man who decided to use Christianity to control his people. *sigh* it just ticks me off to no end we were doing good with the whole dont push your religion on me i wont push my religion on you
Although I don't condone the use of violence, I definitely agree - this situation is definitely repulsive and upsetting.
im from the south and i hear enough about how im going to hell but to have to go to a function and listen to people make snide comments through a prayer is not something i enjoy (and trust me they do do it all the time :cry: )
and i mean its already illegal but they still do it a some things like games and stuff but this would allow them to do it everywhere that schools hold events and thats not something i myself look forward to at all in fact i might just stop going because of it because if i attend a school hosted week of fun like we usually do at my college im now going to have to listen to people who don't like my beliefs pray about me 'cus im standing near them.
Also from the South, so I totally hear you. Before I moved to New England, I had to waste a lot of time trying to justify my atheism (wasn't a Pagan yet), and a lot of people trying to pray over me, get me to come to church with them, get me to repent my sins, etc. It was very frustrating, and it would probably frustrate me even more now that I am no longer an atheist and actually do consider myself spiritual/religious.

I remember my school had a daily "Moment of Silence" that was a thinly veiled attempt at daily prayer (although a lot of students used that opportunity to finish homework), and after 9/11 for a few years my school district played a patriotic song every morning. "God Bless America" was a favorite - they would play that every morning for weeks on end. I wonder if they would just straight up do prayer every morning from now on.
if this made no since im sorry i just had to get this off my chest after reading your post i cant believe that the courts who are suposs to protect us are really going to let something that has such a big impact on the way people treat us pass. to alot it might seem small and insignificance, they just get to pray now, but when you alow something small like that even bigger changes happen, and that small thing can turn into a big one when you allow extrema people the ability to be extrema.

No apologies needed; this was a very frustrating thing to find out today. My version of ranting about it was to write the original post, so that other people know what happened. I don't know if there is anything that we can do to help fight this, but if I do hear of worthy causes or ways to get involved, I will try to keep this thread updated.
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

Post by Heartsong »

I was very, very disappointed when I saw the Court's ruling today on the news. What really bothers me, though, is that our government is having these religious discussions to begin with. While I'm whole-heartedly behind having open, intelligent, and even lively debates about different spiritual points of view, I frankly fail to see how the state of my soul should be of any concern of my town council, let alone my country's government. Granted, I know that in order for the US as a country to better establish a separation of church and state should really be talking about this issue, I find it to be of less relevance to the well-being of our country as a whole than say, oh I don't know, the national debt. I guess in that sense, I'm conflicted. As a pagan, I would like to be given the same consideration and courtesy that is given to those of the more dominant faiths. As a matter of personal political opinion (for lack of a better term at the moment), I really feel that this isn't one of the most pressing issues on our national plate. I hope that makes sense, because I don't mean to say that it isn't important to be talking about highly likely religious repression that is on the horizon with this ruling. It is. It's just...gah, I don't have the words right now to express how torn I feel on this.

I'm also from the Southern US, and here, for me to publicly acknowledge my faith is downright dangerous. There are severe, sometimes fatal repercussions for people who are not of the 'norm', and it's swept under the rug. It disgusts me, because especially in a rural, very small town area such as where I live, it's who you know, and if you know the right people, you can get away with damned near anything. :evilwitch:
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

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Heartsong wrote: I'm also from the Southern US, and here, for me to publicly acknowledge my faith is downright dangerous. There are severe, sometimes fatal repercussions for people who are not of the 'norm', and it's swept under the rug. It disgusts me, because especially in a rural, very small town area such as where I live, it's who you know, and if you know the right people, you can get away with damned near anything. :evilwitch:

I agree some people get jumped just cus of openly saying things not accepted let alone saying that they practice something other then Christianity in my town
and thats our whole police force from where i grow up
my mom went to school with half of them and knows the best lawyer in town cus she dated his nephew so her and alot of people get away with stuff no one should get away with
i dont get why the south hasnt changed really but it hasnt and this just gives them another shall we say tool to use to continue being horribly bias and down right unethical
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

Post by Xiao Rong »

Heartsong wrote:As a matter of personal political opinion (for lack of a better term at the moment), I really feel that this isn't one of the most pressing issues on our national plate. I hope that makes sense, because I don't mean to say that it isn't important to be talking about highly likely religious repression that is on the horizon with this ruling. It is. It's just...gah, I don't have the words right now to express how torn I feel on this.
I feel like it is and it isn't. It isn't in the sense that government prayer is indeed pretty trivial to, say, our unemployment rate and growing income inequality, but on the other hand, I feel like this is part of a larger agenda to promote one particular kind of America, which is not inclusive of women, people of color, people of different faiths, poor people, the LGBTQ community, or consideration for the environment. So in that sense, I think the diminishing of the separation of church and state means that some kinds of viewpoints are being shut out. I can't speak for all Pagans, but I think Paganism has an important perspective to contribute that could help resolve a lot of the world's ills, especially with regards to environmental, economic, and gender justice, but by enshrining prayers that will inevitably lead to a Christian perspective being overrepresented, the Supreme Court has made it that much harder for us to speak up and be heard. So that's why I care a lot about this court case, even though of course legislative prayer is a very small thing compared to many other issues going on.
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

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I feel like it is and it isn't. It isn't in the sense that government prayer is indeed pretty trivial to, say, our unemployment rate and growing income inequality, but on the other hand, I feel like this is part of a larger agenda to promote one particular kind of America, which is not inclusive of women, people of color, people of different faiths, poor people, the LGBTQ community, or consideration for the environment. So in that sense, I think the diminishing of the separation of church and state means that some kinds of viewpoints are being shut out. I can't speak for all Pagans, but I think Paganism has an important perspective to contribute that could help resolve a lot of the world's ills, especially with regards to environmental, economic, and gender justice, but by enshrining prayers that will inevitably lead to a Christian perspective being overrepresented, the Supreme Court has made it that much harder for us to speak up and be heard. So that's why I care a lot about this court case, even though of course legislative prayer is a very small thing compared to many other issues going on.
That's it, exactly, Xiao, well said.
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Re: Town of Greece v. Galloway -- bad news!

Post by Xiao Rong »

As more news comes out about the case and there's more analysis on the subject, I've got some updates and additional perspectives. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that I think this landmark ruling by the Supreme Court has some very serious consequencees for Pagans and only enshrines religious discrimination in the United States.

From The Guardian:
What Galloway and Stephens [the citizens who originally sued the Town of Greece] experienced will unfortunately continue to occur in many communities throughout the country – those who are part of a minority religious tradition in a particular locale should just "put up or shut up" and wait their turn ...

The supreme court has now allowed the majority religion of the members of a city government to dominate the sectarian prayers offered at its meetings. In many towns throughout the nation, of course, these councils are populated predominately by conservative Christians (especially in the midwest and southern states).

While the majority opinion in Greece v Galloway affirms that the prayers should be non-coercive (as in, the government cannot force its constituents to participate), it does leave room for a type of coercion: the choice by these councils or groups to only offer the ability to pray at meetings to particular religious leaders who conform to the religious views of the officials issuing the invites.
And about that "coercion" piece: HecateDemeter at Witches and Pagans notes that the "intent" of the town matters, so long as the town "didn't intend to discriminate, proselytize, or make others uncomfortable":
"Absent a pattern of prayers that over time denigrate, proselytize, or betray an impermissible government purpose, a challenge based solely on the content of a particular prayer will not likely establish a constitutional violation. See 463 U. S., at 794–795. Finally, so long as the town maintains a policy of nondiscrimination, the Constitution does not require it to search beyond its borders for non-Christian prayer givers in an effort to achieve religious balancing. Pp. 9–1."
"Good luck proving intent," HecateDemeter says. What this means it that from now on, the burden of proof will be on people of minority faiths / non-believers (us) to prove that prayers were MEANT to be coercive, which makes it significantly harder for us. If a prayer that was explicitly Christian 98% of the time (as it was in the case of the Town of Greece) doesn't count as coercive, then what is? Short of making people repent their sins in order to get a government job, it will be incredibly difficult to prove that the town intended to proselytize. Justice Kennedy essentially said that if you don't like what you're hearing, then just don't pray along and shut up. As anyone who has grown up in a predominantly Christian area (holla!) knows, it can be intensely uncomfortable to have to sit through and stay silent during while people try to convert you subtly or pray openly or call on all the sinners to accept Jesus, and you can't practice your faith openly or protest for fear of harassment or retaliation. Except now it seems that's basically constitutional! I can only imagine how much worse it'll be when someone decides to try to institute a Christian morning prayer over the intercom in a public high school.

- - - -

Already we are seeing the trickle-down effects. In Roanoke, just one day after the Supreme Court ruling, the County Board of Supervisors is now considering instituting Christian-only prayers, and we can see the religious discrimination already shining through:
“The freedom of religion doesn’t mean that every religion has to be heard,” said [Supervisor] Bedrosian, who added that he is concerned about groups such as Wiccans and Satanists. “If we allow everything … where do you draw the line?” ...

Commenting on Monday, Bedrosian said he envisions a setup by which the supervisors would approve, individually, people from their districts to offer the opening prayer. That system would hold supervisors accountable to their districts, he added.

When asked if he would allow representatives from non-Christian faiths and non-faiths, including Jews, Muslims, atheists and others, the Hollins District supervisor said he likely would not ...

“I think America, pretty much from founding fathers on, I think we have to say more or less that we’re a Christian nation with Christian ideology,” Bedrosian said. “If we’re a Christian nation, then I would say that we need to move toward our Christian heritage.”
Says Annie Gaylor of the Freedom from Religion Foundation about Bedrosian's proposal, "It’s hard for me to believe that if that had come out of Dearborn and they were having exclusively Muslim prayer, that the Supreme Court would have reached the same conclusion."

Considering that part of Justice Kennedy's majority opinion states that the town has no obligation to go out of its way to reach out to non-Christian faiths to lead prayers, this Supreme Court ruling can ONLY benefit the religious majority in the nation.

- - - - - -

As Heartsong and I were discussing earlier in this thread, legislative prayer in a tiny town in upstate New York seems to be a very minor thing - just a few minutes every month. However, Dahlia Lithwick at Slate argues:
... because the prayers offered in the town of Greece abided by this long “tradition,” they are, in Kennedy’s view, acceptable. Even when explicitly Christian. Why? “A number of the prayers did invoke the name of Jesus, the Heavenly Father, or the Holy Spirit, but they also invoked universal themes, as by celebrating the changing of the seasons or calling for a ‘spirit of cooperation’ among town leaders.” What Kennedy did here, in the event that you missed it, was to announce that as a matter of constitutional law, some religious traditions that are universal and longstanding are basically Christian and also that Christian values are basically universal. Done and done. But in so doing he also drew a line between “traditional” and accepted religions, and religions that are “other.” That seems to open the door for [Roanoke County Supervisor] Bedrosian to zone out the Muslims and the Jews and for Moore to zone out the Buddhists and (surprise!) the Muslims.
- - - - - -

So this is a pretty crappy ruling for us Pagans. Is there anything we can do?

Hecate Demeter at Witches and Pagans suggests:
The only logical thing I can see to do in response is for Pagans and other members of minority and disfavored religions to begin showing up, volunteering to offer the public prayers, and making a record of the times that they are turned down. A town or other government body doesn't have to search beyond its borders for non-Christian prayer-givers, but a pattern of turning such people away might convince a court that, even under the Town of Greece standard, there's an Establishment Clause violation.
So, keep your eyes peeled for such opportunities! And bring on the Baphomet statues!
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Re: Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in

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Part of the issue with the separation of Church and state that I have found is the rather large Fallacy that the US is a Christian Nation. This fallacy is present in basically every form imaginable. One of the examples that I can think of is related to a Hindu prayer that was offered in 2000 to the US senate. This prayer was was protested by the "Family Research Council". After that prayer in 2000 they gave a responce on their website which is as follows (I have bolded the really important parts):
Family Research Council wrote:On September 21, 2000 the Family Research Council (FRC) published a response to the prayer on their website and in mailings of their weekly newsletter. In the FRC's article "Religious Pluralism or Tolerance?", Robert Regier and Timothy Dailey said: "A Hindu priest was recently invited to give the opening invocation in the House of Representatives. What's wrong with this?

"What's wrong is that it is one more indication that our nation is drifting from its Judeo-Christian roots...Alas, in our day, when 'tolerance' and 'diversity' have replaced the 10 Commandments as the only remaining absolute dictums, it has become necessary to 'celebrate' non-Christian religions - even in the halls of Congress...Our founders expected that Christianity -- and no other religion -- would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate people's consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference. Many people today confuse traditional Western religious tolerance with religious pluralism. The former embraces biblical truth while allowing for freedom of conscience, while the latter assumes all religions are equally valid, resulting in moral relativism and ethical chaos... As for our Hindu priest friend, the United States is a nation that has historically honored the One True God. Woe be to us on that day when we relegate Him to being merely one among countless other deities in the pantheon of theologies."source
Thankfully there were people that threw this back in the face of the group
In response to news media reporting the FRC's response, Brown's spokesperson said that it is "unfortunate that the Family Research Council interprets the Constitution to say that religious freedom means Christian supremacy."[2] Brown personally responded to the FRC statement, saying "I'm disappointed the Family Research Council doesn't understand what this country is all about. This country was founded on freedom of religion and religious diversity." He said their comments were "bigotry, plain and simple."[7]

Reverend Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the FRC's statement "reeks of religious bigotry...[showing a] remarkable lack of respect for religious diversity."[6] He also said, "It is truly rare, even within the Religious Right, to see a group display simultaneously such a poor understanding of history and a remarkable lack of respect for religious diversity. Usually such profound ignorance like this is commonly found in the 18th, not the 21st century."
source

After that statement the original article published on that groups website was taken down and they had to work really hard to apologize and correct their statements ending up saying that they support and believe in Christianity's truths but do not deny the religious freedom established in the US.

There are other groups and people that push this same agenda and concept the the US is a Christian Nation and they by freedom of religion they basically meant freedom to practice any Christian religion. While it is true that the settlers and colonists originally came to the US to be able to practice safely their own brand and styles of Christianity, that was not the only religion they meant. After all several of the founding fathers were Free Masons. Jefferson even had his own bible that he created and used.

People often forget that the culture back then was that every one went to church every Sunday regardless if they believed in the church or followed that religion or not. It was simply expected. The book Jhonny Tremain actually examines this part of the culture back then clearly when he works on Sunday for a silver order (when nor work aside from cooking was basically allowed on Sundays).
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Re: Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in

Post by Xiao Rong »

Part of the issue with the separation of Church and state that I have found is the rather large Fallacy that the US is a Christian Nation. This fallacy is present in basically every form imaginable.
This is more than a fallacy -- it's an ideological agenda. It is not simply a mistake or misunderstanding of historical thought that only requires some debunking; it is a deliberate attempt to rewrite history in a way that would enshrine Christianity as the only acceptable national religion. The complete separation of church and state WAS the only thing that was protecting us from certain groups that would see every level of government be overtly Christian. It was nice while it lasted.

By the way, the Wild Hunt has written about the Supreme Court ruling.

I also enjoyed Literata's opinion on the case:
In the meantime, we run a serious risk of being used as cover – call it the “I Have a Wiccan Friend” defense. In other words, if a town council has to get a Wiccan one week out of the year (and a Jew once and a Buddhist once) so that they can have their exclusionary prayers to Jesus the other 49 weeks, they’ll do it, and those 49 weeks will do way more to reinforce the Christian sense of hegemony (we own this town – look at the meetings!) than that one week of pretend tolerance will.

Make no mistake, that one-week-a-year, or any similar plan, is tolerance, not inclusion. I have argued before and will argue again that there is no such thing as a fully inclusive prayer that covers all citizens, so the only truly inclusive option is no prayer at all.
She explains why even "non-sectarian prayers" that don't reference specific deities is exclusive in an earlier post:
It’s not possible to give a prayer that doesn’t exclude someone.

The act of praying is exclusionary: most atheists don’t pray.

The mode of praying is exclusionary: some people pray by putting on specific garments; some pray by dancing; some pray by kneeling; some pray by making burnt offerings; some pray by creating artworks; and on and on. Simply standing or sitting with bowed head and folded hands while someone says words is a specific kind of prayer that is primarily practiced by a specific type of religion.

It doesn’t matter that that group is broad and varied. It doesn’t matter that that group is hegemonic in this country. It’s a specific act associated with a specific religion, and if that’s not the definition of sectarian, I don’t know what is.
Earlier in this thread, I wrote about how others have suggested that we can register our protests by signing up to lead prayers in our communities, partially to make sure our voices are heard, and partially to see how many times we get rejected so that later on we can bring a case to show how this new policy is discriminatory. Literata has written more on this subject that has really shaken my opinion on the subject, explaining why she, as an ordained Wiccan priestess, is conflicted on the matter:
I am hearing some good arguments about why we should engage in exactly the kind of prayer that I firmly believe on fundamental principles should not be happening. I am not particularly swayed by the argument from equal misery: If they’re going to make us miserable, I am not convinced that we should make them miserable too. I am much more convinced by the argument that trying to participate in public prayer and being turned away could be – in the long term, on the order of decades – the foundation of a new case to get this crap overturned.

In the meantime and the near term, there is always the possibility that a sectarian Wiccan or Hellenistic or Druid prayer can be so repulsive to a Christian majority that the Christian majority decides not to hold the public prayers any longer. That would be similar to the attempt to install a Satanist monument in Oklahoma to “balance” the Ten Commandments monument.

I am not yet convinced that the potential harm done to others in the meantime is worth it, especially because of the risk of being used for “cover” in the way I describe above. I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

I don’t know how to balance the kind of activism for equal recognition of Wicca and Paganisms that I see going on in many places (military, prisons) with using Wicca as a weapon to get religion removed. How do I take action and try to communicate the subtext “Well, you could just not allow prayers here,” in one context, and in another context take an almost identical action with the subtext, “No, really, take me seriously, Wiccan prisoners have a real need for ministry?” How do we avoid having the kind of wiggle-arounds that are going to be used in prayer-giving contexts (oh, we’ll have everyone in on a rotation, that’ll work) applied to other contexts to marginalize us even further?

As I said, I’m willing to hear further arguments. I’m deeply torn about this matter and expect to spend some time contemplating while I’m away at Fertile Ground Gathering this weekend. That means I won’t be here to moderate comments or respond. We’ve got time. Let’s ground and center and think and talk together before we act.
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Re: Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in

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Yet another Pagan perspective on the court ruling:

David Dashifen Kees at the Wild Garden blog writes that, though he is disappointed in the ruling, there is a silver lining:
... there is one thing from which we can all benefit as a result of this ruling. If nothing else, it creates the opportunity for increased interfaith involvement prior to town meetings. Population statistics indicate that the majority of municipal sectarian invocations will remain Christian. This is especially true since the syllabus to the SCOTUS ruling also indicates that a town need not not search beyond its borders for “non-Christian prayer givers in an effort to achieve religious balancing.”

But, for those towns which have non-Christian members, it’s not only fair to say that the town should involve them, but that they must. I suppose an argument could be made that without an appropriate religious authority within the town borders it may be hard to do so. But, the ruling indicated the town doesn’t have to find such authorities; it didn’t say that the a religious congregation couldn’t invite their authority to town!

From this point of view, the decision is sort of a win-win. We have the chance to share our practices with others and to engage our neighbors in learning more not only about Paganism but also about other minority faiths and about the various forms of both atheism and non-theism. And, if we find a pattern of discrimination, we also have plans in place about how to deal with it.
~ Xiao Rong ~ 小蓉 ~ Little Lotus ~
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Xiao Rong
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Re: Town of Greece v Galloway - Religious Discrimination in

Post by Xiao Rong »

More proof that the Supreme Court ruling is going to be used explicitly to discriminate against Pagans and other minority faiths:

Virginia county board says no followers of ‘pre-Christian deities’ allowed to deliver prayers:
the board has invited local clergy whose names are drawn from an official county list.

Almost all of those religious leaders have represented Christian denominations, and the county has denied a Wiccan’s request to be added to the list.

Officials defended that decision, saying the “neo-pagan” faith does not fall within the Judeo-Christian tradition and “invokes polytheistic, pre-Christian deities.”

That claim led to a lawsuit by Americans United and the ACLU, but the groups say the board continues to exclude even some monotheistic faiths, such as the county’s Sikh congregation.
So that makes 2 towns in Virginia that are now trying to use the Supreme Court ruling to enshrine Christianity as the only acceptable religion ... I am so proud of my home state! (just kidding, I'm very happy to be many many hours away in New England).
~ Xiao Rong ~ 小蓉 ~ Little Lotus ~
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