Channel 3 NBC news affiliate WSAV serving the Savannah, GA and Hilton Head, SC areas did what most news channels do come the Halloween season. They allow a “human interest” reporter to find a witch and do an interview for a brief filler of Halloween news. Now, granted as the years have passed there have been some good, if not shallow reporting and interviews with witches but on the general scale the people they chose to interview are local New Age shop owners who are not well informed on the history of their individual paths. When a reporter does come across a well informed and astute witch the norm is to cut the piece for tidbits on what the reporter thinks their news audience will accept in the way of actual information.
…read full article…

Technorati Tags: channel 3 news, Ignorance, massimi, metzger, Wicca, witchcraft

“In short, women are abandoning the church,” writes Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby. “Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by [the pagan religion] Wicca, popularized by the TV series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ Read full article here.

I’ll admit it, this statement provided me the Ha-Ha today.  Personally, I would like to hope that it would take more than a pop culture t.v. show to garner a reasoning for dropping ones faith.

By using the acceptance of what the media likes to play out as “entertainment paganism” there are way to many people jumping the bandwagon in the blame game looking for reasons outside of ones’ church as a way not to take any spiritual responsibility for its adherents not going to services anymore. Maybe, such places of worship who are upset about losing the female members of their congregations should take a look at what they can do about their problem instead of using pop culture as a scapegoat.

Just a thought.

Technorati Tags: church blames buffy, entertainment paganism, females, Ignorance, laura jean karr, paganism, pop culture, simple abnormality, Wicca

Last week, Kathy Lee Gifford in an effort to try and be witty enough to keep her career going said something not all that surprising about Pagan’s in general. On a mini-segment of the Today show, where she was hosting a wedding quiz the following question came up:

Why do you wear your wedding band on your left hand finger?
a. More people use their right hand to write.
b. Egyptians believed that finger follows the vein of Love.
c. Pagans believed it was bad luck to carry metal on your right
side.

Now, the question above is not the cause of the outraged Pagan influx of e-mails continuing to flood my inbox; it was her commentary as she read the answers off that set the whole issue a flame. Kathy Lee said: “”The Pagans, the nasty, bad, Pagans, believed it was bad luck to carry metal on your right side.” That’s all she said. You can watch the full clip here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25368216#25368216

Since then there has been an outcry for justice in the Pagan community. A petition has gone up, boycotts have been called for and even some Pagan political organizations (of which I am a member, so I cannot disclose what was said) have called for action to make this a political statement on the unfairness of how Paganism is seen in our country.

I can understand the out cry, however I do not believe that this is boycott or full on protest worthy event. Should we as a community take the overbearing actions of the Religious Right and bombard media outlets all that would do, would be to bring us down to the same level as those who have done so before.

I believe that as a community we need to pick our battles and not jump on the outrage bandwagon the second someone doesn’t give our beliefs the respect that we think that they should. There are more important and more pressing issues to be dealt with in the Pagan community that deserve more attention than one public figures apparent ignorance. Kathy Lee has no power other than being on TV and that is it. She has no political influence; she does not take part in the law making process and has no idea that there is a big bad world outside of her cocooned lifestyle of self-importance.

So, please… let this one go by and turn your attention to issues that actually deserve it.

Technorati Tags: Ignorance, kathy lee giffor, laura jean karr, pagan outrage, today show

For years now the The Focus on the Family group has worked as hard as they could to over take what used to be something good for our country. The National Day of Prayer that was given to people of all faiths to take a day to pray in their own way no matter what religion they were has now been stolen by the group’s creation of The National Day of Prayer Task Force.

On the The National Day of Prayer Task Force website they state that they are the “National Day of Prayer official website” interesting that they don’t state on the front page that they are a privately funded task force and not what used to be the original government website for The National Day of Prayer. People do not learn that they are not the official group unless they first read through their mission statement on another page which states:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force’s mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family.

This leaves me to wonder: Why is government placed first in their efforts and the family placed last?

On their What to pray for page, they list first our federal government leaders, then state leaders and then local officials. No where on their page does it ask you to join them in praying for your family or for your church.

While stating that this is a day for people of all faiths to celebrate if you want to help in any of the task forces events for that day you must sign an application that includes a statement of belief. You can read that form here. Oddly, enough the statement that you are required to sign is one of an evangelical view and excludes not only just the Pagans but the majority of the Christian and Jewish communities as well.

As to the theme of this years National Day of Prayer, what did our highest government official choose? Well, he didn’t. And did Congress come together to elect a theme that would welcome any citizen of any faith? No, they didn’t pick it either. The task force choose the “theme” for the national day of prayer taking a quote from the Bible and our president signed it into the governmental proclamation. What happened to our government not respecting an establishment of religion?

If you would like to take part in an open celebration for our National Day of Prayer you can ban together for your groups own prayer event or you could join in with the Inclusive Prayer Day and make a statement to the task force and our leadership that supports them by celebrating the diversity of religious freedom here in America.

www.InclusivePrayerDay.org

Technorati Tags: Ignorance, inclusive day of prayer, laura jean karr, misinformation, national day of prayer