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 Wren's Bird Call 4
Author: Wren
Posted: August 21st. 2000
Times Viewed: 4,492
Wren's Bird Call of The Week whistles its way to the great state of Alabama and alights upon the churll-ish behavior of a group of Pell City religious extremists. Big surprise but Alabama IS the state that gave us Judge Roy Moore's 'hang the Ten Commandments on every courthouse wall and the First Amendment be damned' campaign. During last week's full moon, a group of Wiccans held their usual monthly ritual. Well, not quite as usual. Cameramen stood outside the circle, police blocked off the section of neighborhood around the location of the circle and the aforementioned Christian religious extremists circled around the street and neighborhood yards like buzzards who just got wind of some easy free pickings. (There's plenty of buzzard bait this week in the Alabama Live Religion Forum as Wiccans, Witches and pagans have been standing firm against some very ridiculous claims. Fly on over and give your fellow pagans a wing-up.)
Was there a hoot-nanny goin' on? Nope, the 'good' folks of Pell City were there to run the Wiccans out of town. Thirty or so protesters showed up carrying signs with such spiritually uplifting messages as, "Get the devil worshippers out of the community!" Now I'm not a Christian, but I have read the Bible (many times) and I can't recall the chapter and verse of that particular part of the story where Jesus comes up on a group of Gentiles doing their private religious thing in the backyard and then turns to his disciples and says, "Go git 'em, boys! Run them pagans right outta Galilee!" Maybe it's in the footnotes somewhere. Okay, there WAS that little 'money-changer' incident, but as far as the news reports on this incident go there is no mention of any sort of foreign currency exchanging going on under the full moon in Pell City, Alabama.
Actually the proper biblical response for those folks who encounter people who are practicing a perfectly satisfying religion of their own and who refuse to swallow the 'good news' that they are on their way to a place called hell because of it, is to move out of town and shake the dust of that place from their Birkenstocks. Pell City real estate agents, get your calculators ready! But some other really good Christian neighbors obviously couldn't find that 'outta town' footnote in their Bibles either and so they came out in support of the First Amendment instead. Loving one's neighbors isn't always easy, but Jesus himself never said that it would be.
Speaking of the news reports, uh, where were they? There was a nice one on Headline News and some local radio stations have done some call-in shows, but where were the perpetually outraged political pundits? If the group happened to be a black family, Jesse Jackson would be on every news feed across the country faster than you could flip a flapjack. If skinheads had surrounded a Jewish household, Joe Leiberman and the ADL would be holding press conferences even if it were on a Saturday. And this makes the usually astute Bill O'Reilly wrong, wrong and wrong.
On the O'Reilly Factor last week, Bill poo-pooed La. Senator Mary Landreau's protestation of the Democratic Party's 'panderation' to minorities by retorting, "Every politician stands up against prejudice these days!" The implication that Bill was making is that politicians find defending minorities a very nice politically correct feather-in-their-sparkly-red, white and blue-hats.
Well, Bill, last week in Pell City a gaggle of religious fundamentalists from the local Christian churches surrounded a group of peaceful Wiccans celebrating a peaceful religious ceremony in their back yards and called them derogatory, nasty names and want them run outta town simply because they do not practice one of the more 'acceptable' religions available. And we have yet to see or hear of one politician-either local or national- stand up and express the politically proper degree of outrage against such bigotry.
So which political cash cow do you think will be the first one to stand up and openly declare itself to be the 'party of Witches'?
Prejudice against Witches, Wiccans and Pagans is still that hot little toad that no politician wants seen hopping about on their party's bandwagon. It's unfair, it's a silent seal of approval to those who do it and it's as wrong as Bill O'Reilly is on that point. But, Bill, if any politicians call me for a press conference on this subject, we'll make sure that you get the interview.
In Your Service,
Wren Walker
The Witches' Voice
Email: See our Staff contact Page
Year 2000 - August 21st.
Article Specs
Article ID: 4573
VoxAcct: 1
Section: wrenwalker
Age Group: Adult
Days Up: 4,657
Times Read: 4,492
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