When pagans get our rights, everyone benefits by Starhawk

Co-founder, Reclaiming
Starhawk

Starhawk is a prominent voice in modern Wiccan spirituality and cofounder of reclaiming.org, an activist branch of modern Pagan religion, and author of ten books


When pagans get our rights, everyone benefits

In his recent guest column for On Faith, Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress states that "the decision by Air Force Academy officials in Colorado Springs to construct an outdoor space for the worship of pagan deities is an open invitation for God to send His harshest judgments against our nation."

I'd like to point out to Pastor Jeffress that when the Air Force respects and safeguards the religious rights of minorities, we are all safer. Patrick McCollum, who has fought many of the key legal battles for the rights of Pagan soldiers and prisoners, says, "When Pagans get our rights, everyone gets their rights."

Rights are inconvenient things. We'd all probably like to reserve them for the good and deserving people and not have to fuss around when we stick it to the bad guys.

Problem is, who decides? And by what criteria? And how do we know the bad guys are truly bad, or that the accused are truly guilty? Those sorts of sticky questions got us the Bill of Rights and the concept of due process, for saints and sinners, for the accused who are innocent and those who turn out to be guilty. For if we deny due process to the guilty, we risk convicting the innocent.

And if we deny equal right to Pagans, because Pastor Jeffress interprets his Bible as saying his version of God doesn't like our religion--we put him and his church at risk as well. For tomorrow, some other pastor, priest, rabbi or imam might decide that the First Baptist Church of Dallas is anathema to their version of God, and drive him and his flock into hiding.

The Founding Fathers and Mothers grasped that principle. They themselves had suffered the pain of persecution by other Christians who didn't like their particular brand of worship. Jeffress alludes to this when he quotes Dr. Joseph Story, who served on the Supreme Court between 1811 and 1845:

"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less advance, Islam or Judaism or any other infidelity by prostrating Christianity but to exclude rivalry between Christian denominations."

...http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/starhawk/2010/02/when_pagans_get_our_rights_everyone_benefits.html

specifically excludes pagans, witches, etc., we have some serious problems, including the vandalism of the circle on the AFA (complete with cross planted right in the center of it. I do love the fact that the circle is on a hilltop that is visible to fungus--aka, focus on the family)

thank you so much for posting this article.

When the pagan vikings were pillaging Europe, and sacking British and Irish monasteries they were at the peak of their power. When they converted to Christianity they were punished by the Little Ice Age and lost their Greenland colonies, and were reduced to mere national powers.

Is god a pagan?