Last Summer a spate of stories emerged in the UK about the creation of a Pagan Police Association (there’s also a Pagan Police Group, but they aren’t related), and their quest to have Pagan holidays approved for time-off requests. Now, word has come that the PPA has been officially recognized as a Diversity Staff Support Association, ensuring Pagan police can use their vacation time during their holy days without being turned down.
Endorsement would mean that chief constables could not refuse a pagan officer’s request to take feast days as part of his or her annual leave. The eight pagan festivals include Imbolc (the feast of lactating sheep), Lammas (the harvest festival) and the Summer Solstice (when mead drinking and naked dancing are the order of the day) … The new association, which already has three official police chaplains and committee members in the Metropolitan, Hertfordshire and Humberside forces, welcomed its breakthrough. PC Andrew Pardy, its vice-chairman and a beat officer in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, said: “The Police Service needs to embrace paganism in order to represent communities effectively.” Mr Pardy, who worships Norse gods, added: “All activities undertaken by the association support and reinforce the vision and values of the Police Service, while upholding the Home Office standards for equality and diversity.”
This has triggered a wave of coverage and editorial on the matter. For Ruth Gledhill at the Times, this development is the mark of a truly civilized society.
“Today the wheel has turned full circle. Practitioners of witchcraft are no longer burnt at the stake — and it is a mark of civilised society that those who follow these beliefs are accorded the same rights as those who follow mainstream faiths.”
Meanwhile, tabloids like The Sun predictably try to squeeze some controversy out of the news.
“By allowing Pagans to set up their own organisation, the Home Office has officially sanctioned a string of Wicca and Pagan-related holidays, which include leaving food out for the dead, ‘unabashed sexual promiscuity’ and going on long country walks.”
Long country walks! Outrage! In truth, it’s hard for the usual anti-Pagan crowd to get over-excited about this since there are already recognized support associations for most of the major religions in the UK. Here’s Christian Concern for our Nation giving it a go.
“Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of CCFON, said: ‘These concerns will no doubt reflect the view among many Christians that the PPA’s equal status is just another example in a long list of ‘diversity’ rules coming at the expense and marginalisation of Christianity.’”
Not exactly a rallying cry that will stir the emotions of Britain’s Christians is it?
Perhaps the best editorial on this comes from The Guardian’s Nicholas Taylor, himself a Pagan, who notes that this can only be a good thing in shifting the public stereotypes of what a modern Pagan looks like.
It will be refreshing when the engine of communication realises there as many different ways of being a pagan as there are ways of being a human. We’re not all crusty trustafarian soap dodgers or aging Lord of the Rings fans waving swords and swearing on Odin’s beard. And our differences, like the variations of the land we belong to, mark us out from the boys’ own adventures of monotheism, with their handy abstract tracts that can be foisted on people the world over. Paganism is not a religion. It is a way of life. If a police officer taking a holiday to celebrate Beltane is a story then by all means go on and tell us whether they prefer sailing round the Scilly Isles, raving in Vauxhall or cycling the Peaks. Even police officers have to be permitted a life outside the job after all and how they choose to spend it is only of prurient interest to anyone else. As the Wiccan rede says: “And it harm none, do as you will.”
So congratulations to the Pagan Police Association, and the 500 Pagan police officers (and 3 Pagan police chaplains) currently serving in the UK. Here’s to equal treatment, challenging assumptions, and getting a bit of time off for the solstice.
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