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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 20925
[Civil]
Date Posted:
7/19/2009
5:41:24 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 2,801
RSS: 11,329
Comments: 4
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When Belief Means A Battle
Author: Scott Smith Source: The Record (CA)
Title: WHEN BELIEF MEANS A BATTLE
A Druid lives behind the walls of Deuel Vocational Institution, a state prison for men near Tracy.
Morgan James Kane, a burly man with tattooed forearms, follows a neopagan belief older than Christianity. The little-known religion born among ancient Celts promotes the divinity of nature. Druids celebrate the sun, moon and turning seasons.
Magic and miracles are possible for the pure at heart, a belief Druids like Kane still hold.
Kane - who pleaded guilty in 1984 to murdering a Fresno man with cyanide - says he's at odds with prison officials over his religious freedoms. He doesn't receive the same access to chapel time as inmates of mainstream religions, and he claims prison staffers have outright targeted him for his faith.
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Community Thoughts: There are 4 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Markers | Jul 22nd. at 2:34:41 pm EDT
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karrie9 (Kenosha, Wisconsin) - Email Me - Web
"A bias against minority religions is institutional," said McCollum.
Institutional. Run by our government.
Prisoner's religious rights are important. Not only should there not be institutionalized creedism but If the state hires chaplains from five major faith groups, but all others suffer discrimination, that is a problem because how we treat our students, prisoners, elderly, handicapped, and ill provides very important markers as to the wellness of a society. Both are far bigger issues than if **that** prisoner did _____ (fill in with crime or crimes involved) .
Also, it's a sad statement that McCollum feels he has to state that different religion does not mean lack of moral compass. He had to say it because the prevailing paradigm is that different religion, especially if not monotheistic or big enough, equals immorality or "lack of moral compass."
... And nobody should have to explain that "faith" is not a synonym for the word religion unless all of reality stops at orthodoxy (correct belief or "faith") and everything else is invalid or not-to-be-named.
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| No Matter The "Religion" We Are The Same | Jul 21st. at 2:02:52 am EDT
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Asha (Albany, Oregon) - Email Me
Why is this person being pitied? He has taken life. Now he wants chapel time? Has anyone bothered to wonder what would have been done to him in the time and age of his so-called old religion? and you bet that if it were a Christian in their instead of a Pagan/Neo-Pagan/or any other type besides main-stream that this conversation would be different. People are yet again failing to realize that we all draw from the same inlet. Offenders, no matter the belief, should be held accountable for what they have done; answering for their crimes.
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| Taking Heads | Jul 20th. at 2:07:26 pm EDT
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Finn (San Marcos, Texas) - Email Me
My first bone to pick with this article is that "Neo-Paganism" is not older that Christianity. It is, by definition, "new" Paganism and has very little to do with the religions and belief systems of antiquity. The only way you can be practicing a Pagan faith that is older that Christianity is to be a part of a "Reconstruction" Pagan faith. They are often worlds apart.
My second bone to pick is with the man in question. He can go rot as far as I'm concerned. If he has truly been a Druid all of his years, at least as I and people who originated the term understand the meaning, he would have been ritually killed for his crime. Chances are he would have been burned to death, or had the future divined in his entrails as they were let out of his body, and/or had his head cut off and preserved and kept as a trophy. I don't care about the religious rights of criminals.
I'll go further, you shouldn't care about whether or not criminals don't get as much access to Pagan and Neo-Pagan faiths as they do Christianity. Let the Christians have them. Why would we want them?
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| ... | Jul 19th. at 11:06:13 pm EDT
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
On one hand, he did the crime so he should do the time. Prison is supposed to be punishment.
On the other hand, this is proof that Pagan religions are still discriminated against in this day and age. Any of the fluffbunnies want to chime in right now and go "OH BUT THAT'S TEH MINORITY!!!"
Also, this:
"At some prisons, Wiccans outnumber the inmates of mainstream religions, yet the state won't hire a chaplain for them, said McCollum, a claim that could not be independently verified because officials do not keep statistics on inmates' faiths."
This looks like a sensationalist tabloid paragraph.
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