By: The Wild Hunt » Louisiana’s Religious Freedom Act and other Pagan News of Note

Wed, 19 May 2010 18:29:37 +0000

[...] many Wiccan and Pagan groups support having their gay marriage rites legally recognized, I found it surprising that LAW would uncritically support this measure. Is this an effort to show [...]

By: Riverwolf,

Riverwolf, — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Had never considered your point about pagan faiths that bless same-sex unions. Another arrow for my arsenal! And there was great energy at work this past Saturday!

By: Garan du

Garan du — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:54:00 +0000

Jason, you are absolutely correct on this matter. As a leader of a gay Pagan spiritual community (the Between the World’s Men’s Gathering), I have assisted in the handfastings of several gay Pagan couples here in Ohio, where the State Constitution has a “Defense of Marriage” amendment. This issue is very real, not just in California, but across the country where U.S. citizens whose faith communities recognize same-sex marriage are held to Abrahamist codes and thereby discriminated against by the state in the exercise of their own faiths. Religions have always had, and will always have, the right to discriminate against the members of their own faith communities. That being said, Constitutionally, they do not have the right to use the apparatus of the state to enforce their religious convictions on others. And that, simply put, is the crux of the matter before us. Why does one religioos viewpoint, even a “majority” one receive an elevated standing in the law when the Constitution clearly abdjures the promotion of a state religion? The US Supreme Court has, with occasional backsliding, gradually worked towards the conclusion that the Judeo-Christian faith community may not enforce its views on the entire country. In Abington Township School District v. Schempp (1963), which eliminated forced prayer in the public schools, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to … freedom of worship … and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” I am reminded of the fateful words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his disserting opinion on the Supreme Court ruling that tossed the nation’s sodomy laws onto the trash heap of history (Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)), State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding. See ante, at 11 (noting “an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex”). The impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional “morals” offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis challenge. “The law,” it said, “is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.”I would agree that it is now time for the courts to get very busy indeed.Blessings,Garan duColumbus, Ohio

Comments on: What About Our Faiths?

By: The Wild Hunt » Louisiana’s Religious Freedom Act and other Pagan News of Note

By: Riverwolf,

By: Garan du