A few quick news notes to start your weekend.

Glastonbury Thorn Cut Down: The town of Glastonbury in England, a place held as special and holy to both Pagans and Christians, suffered a tragedy yesterday as vandals cut down the Holy Thorn tree on Wearyall Hill. The tree was a place of pilgrimage, and thought to be planted there by Joseph of Arimathea (the uncle of Jesus).

Photo by Matt Cardy / Getty Images

Police are trying to establish a motive for the attack, in which vandals hacked off the branches of the tree, leaving only part of the trunk remaining. They have not ruled out a religious motive. Katherine Gorbing, director of Glastonbury Abbey, said: “The vandals have struck at the heart of Christianity. Like the whole town, we are shocked and appalled.”

So far, no one is sure why vandals attacked the tree. Some claim it could have been done by some sort of neo-Puritans, hearkening back to the Cromwellian “Roundheads” who cut down the original tree during the English Civil War, other think it might be due to the recent collapse of Crown Currency Exchange (the owner of Wearyall Hill is a major stockholder in the company). Whatever the case, this is a tragedy to those who love the history, tradition, and unique atmosphere of Glastonbury. One can hope the tree will be replaced by a surviving off-shoot, the perpetrators caught, and the wounds healed over time.

Jim Morrison Pardoned: The late Dionysian rocker/poet Jim Morrison has been pardoned of his 1970 indecent exposure charges by outgoing Florida governor Charlie Crist, calling the conviction a “blot” on his record. This move was blasted by Morrison’s widow, author and  Celtic Pagan Patricia Kennealy Morrison.

The pardon isn’t enough for Patricia Kennealy Morrison, who says she married Morrison in a ceremony that was never made official. She wanted the convictions expunged and called the pardon “a complete cheap, cynical, political ploy.” “I have a real problem with the semantics of a pardon. The pardon says that all his suffering and all that he went through during the trial, everything both of us went through, was negated,” she said [...] Kennealy Morrison said Morrison’s convictions led to his demise, and that of the band. She said he felt like he “had been made a scapegoat of the counterculture movement.”

The issue of a pardon has been something of a debate among Doors fans, with some preferring a more raucous image of the singer. For many Pagans Morrison has become “the 20th Century incarnation of Dionysus,” complete with rituals done in his honor.

Goat Heads That Aren’t Occult: Three homes in Cincinnati had severed goat heads placed on their door-steps, but for once it isn’t being blamed on practitioners of Santeria, Satanists, or occult practitioners.

“Police currently do not believe there is any kind of occult connection. “Usually when satanic or cult worshipers do this kind of thing they leave a mark they want you to know exactly what, who and why this was done,” said [Cincinnati Police Detective Charles] Zopfi. Police interviewed all three families to see if they are connected in some way and so far the answer is no. “Right now it could be anything from a teenage prank to a very nasty prank to somebody who is just targeting these people for a specific reason and right now we don’t know why,” said Zopfi.”

Gold star to Detective Zopfi for not rushing to judgment, or falling for those horrid “training videos” for “occult crime.” Now if only more law enforcement and animal control officials would follow suit.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

My latest response at the Washington Post’s On Faith site is now up.

Here’s this week’s panel question:

Is marriage obsolete? A new survey out this week from the National Marriage Project shows that marriage is an institution in decline in many parts of American society. This “retreat from marriage in Middle America” will have wide-ranging social and economic consequences, say the survey’s authors. Another recent study of marriage, administered by the Pew Research Center, showed that nearly 40% of Americans believe marriage is becoming ‘obsolete.’ What is marriage? Is it a civil union or is it a religious institution? How do you define it? Is there a marriage crisis in America today?

Here’s an excerpt from my response:

It’s telling that the “solution” provided by many to the marriage problem is to roll back freedoms, and enshrine a trapped-in-amber definition of marriage that is as much an artificial construction as any now criticized by the culture warriors. Just as many “traditional marriage” proponents would blanch at the thought of returning marriage to a time of dowries, land transference, political alliances, and women-as-bargaining-chip; so too do young people today recoil at the thought of marriage being limited to the “proper” genders, a vehicle for reproduction, social stability, and maintaining an illusory status quo. A return to a time when private detectives where required to extricate oneself from an unhappy union, and domestic abuses were glossed over for the sake of social order.

I hope you’ll head over to the site and read my full response, and the other panelist responses, and share your thoughts.

Remember how I mentioned the invocation of the Mayan goddess Ixchel at the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico? At the time I noted that it would most likely confirm the greatest fears of those conservative Christians who see environmentalism as a stalking horse for Pagan religion, a “Green Dragon” that must be opposed.

Well, now a variety of religious and political pundits have seized on the invocation and are using it as proof that the conference is either crazy, laughable, or outright demonic. From the crazy/laughable camp you have this anonymously-penned Investors Business Daily editorial that uses the invocation to prove environmentalists aren’t rational, and even takes some time out to take a swipe at Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

“Still think those who continue to push the idea of man-made climate change are well-grounded and rational? Think again. Consider Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. She opened the U.N’s global warming conference last week with a prayer to Ixchel, the Mayan goddess of the moon. This mythological supreme being of fertility is supposed to be good for sending rain for crops. Maybe that’s the sort of blessing Figueres had in mind when, from Cancun’s — no joke — Moon Palace, she called Ixchel “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving” and hoped delegates would be inspired by her. And did we mention that the multitasking Ixchel is also some kind of jaguar? Given her many roles, is it really reasonable to ask her to also save the planet from global warming?”

That mocking scorn is echoed by conservative pundits at Fox Nation, Gateway Pundit, and the Michelle Malkin blog.

“Watch out, Al Gore, your moonbat congregation is starting to direct their prayers elsewhere [...] It just makes sense: When you’re pushing a myth, there’s no more appropriate entity to pray to than a mythical goddess. Why be inconsistent? Here’s an image of Ixchel found on a Wikipedia page. If Helen Thomas and Code Pink had a love child…”

That mocking turns into full-throated demonic panic when you turn to the more religiously-focused outlets.

“So now we are invoking Mayan deities to call blessings upon a scheme largely designed to wreck the Western World, the desiccated remains of what had once been called Christendom. That the weaving of the new tapestry, the kingdom of the goddess, is difficult is beyond dispute, but the forces that have been at work in the war against the Kingdom of God are nothing if not diligent. It starts with stealing wealth.”

Michael Youssef at the Christian Post whips out his Godwin and goes the full Nazi in an editorial entitled: “the Enviro-Nazis Come Clean in Cancun.”

“Now that they have left us without a shadow of doubt as to their true agenda, it is time for evangelical leaders across the world to rise up and acknowledge the truth. I realize that, for many leaders who have buried their heads in the sand of cultural popularity, speaking out in truth will be a new experience. But for the rest of us who know the truth, let the words of the prophet Elijah ring in our ears, “Choose ye this day whom you will worship.” If it is Jesus, the Creator of the universe, then say so. But if it is a mixture of Jesus and Ixchel, then this must be confessed.”

No matter what emerges, or doesn’t emerge, from the Cancun talks you can bet this incident will be used as grist for these pundits for years to come. Further proof that environmentalism is a secret plot to overthrow Christianity (and free-market capitalism).

In the long history of this blog I have only completely written off one news outlet when it comes to stories concerning modern Pagans, the anti-Pagan conspiracy-loving WorldNetDaily (WND), but it looks like I’m about to add another.  The Daily Mail, a right-leaning British tabloid one perilous step above former Bat Boy spotters like the Weekly World News, has crossed the Rubicon into outright hostile distorted sensationalism regarding anything involving modern Pagans.

An illustration from The Daily Mail article.

“Hundreds of criminals are to be given four days a year off prison work – to celebrate pagan festivals. The festivals include Imbolc – The Festival of the Lactating Sheep – which falls on February 1 and is dedicated to the goddess Brighid. Another is the festival of Beltane, which falls in early May, devotees are urged to celebrate the Sun God with ‘unabashed sexuality and promiscuity’. The Yule festival involves pagans ‘casting spells’ and dressing up as ghosts.”

The bizarre distortions of Pagan holidays, and the turning of a fairly straightforward allowance of equal treatment for Pagan prisoners into some sort of pearls-clutching sign of society crumbling is sadly only the most recent in a string of anti-Pagan smears perpetrated by the paper this year. There was the “British schools teach Paganism” distortion, the “BBC is too Pagan friendly” pile-on, the “museums are changing their policies because they are afraid of Pagans” exaggeration, and the scathing anti-Pagan vitriol from Melanie Phillips when The Druid Network won charity status.

“Elevating them to the same status as Christianity is but the latest example of how the bedrock creed of this country is being undermined. More than that, it is an attack upon the very concept of religion itself. This is because Druidry is simply not a religion. Now, it’s true that religion is notoriously difficult to define. But true religions surely rest on an established structure of traditions, beliefs, literature and laws. Above all, they share a belief in a supernatural deity (or more than one) that governs the universe. By these standards, Druidry is surely not a religion but a cult…”

So that’s it. To quote a famous Bond villian: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action. Five times in the span of three months? It’s a paranoid unhealthy obsession. They can’t seem to actually write something fair-minded about our faiths, as if the mention of Paganism, Druidry, or Wicca sparks some sort of Pavlovian urge to cast themselves as Sgt. Howie in The Wicker Man (sans the ending, of course). They are an unwitting parody of conservative thinking, a reactionary journalistic Chicken Little constantly warning of the sky falling, knowing that eventually something they scream about will be correct.

I’d call for a boycott, or angry letters, but that just feeds the beast. They thrive, crave, our attention. The outrage-baiting headlines, the choppy barely-rewritten-from-the-newswires prose interspersed with distortions and clumsily obscured personal opinion, it’s all an attention-generating machine. So it stops here. No more links. No more attention. Let’s stop pretending they are “news”, and deny them the page-views they so desperately desire. Don’t forward them, respond to them, Tweet them, or share them on Facebook. If you must comment on a story they do, find the kernel of a real story and report on that. Dig deeper. Don’t provide them with any more fuel. They are a parody of the news, but that joke isn’t funny anymore.

Just a few quick news notes for you to start your Monday.

Asylum For Witch-Hunt Victims: A Nigerian woman in Britain is fighting deportation on the grounds that she will be hunted and killed as a witch in her country if sent back. Cynthia Owie came to the UK in 2008 with her infant daughter, shorty after the baby sadly contracted meningitis and died, now Owie says she is receiving death threats from fellow Nigerians accusing her of witchcraft in the child’s death and is seeking asylum.

Ms Owie, 33, said: “I have been threatened that I will be killed if I go back. I have been told I am a witch and murdered our daughter.” Ms Owie also claims she was treated “like an animal” at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre, in Bedford, where failed asylum seekers are held before removal. Her cause has been taken up by West Ham MP Lyn Brown as well as members of the Ascension Parish Church in Custom House, east London, which has been providing Ms Owie with accommodation and support for two years. Rev Chris Hanson, the vicar of the church, took the case to the Home Office last week and said the community was praying that she would be allowed to stay. “Cynthia’s case is one in a thousand,” he said. “She has gone about trying to stay in this country in a God-honouring way. I am hopeful that the Home Office will understand her exceptional circumstances. When the baby was discovered as being very ill, she was accused of witchcraft. People out in Nigeria believe she brought on this illness and we believe if she is returned to Nigeria she would be killed.”

If Owie’s plea is granted it could set a new precedent for asylum seekers to the West. Would more individuals from places like Kenya, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia try to seek asylum to escape jail, abuse, or death? More importantly, would a stream of asylum seekers affected by witch-hunts and panics force Western governments to become more proactive in using their diplomatic muscle to end the worst abuses? What do we do when the men and women accused of “sorcery” and “witchcraft” are no longer “over there” and are instead at our doorsteps begging to be spared?

Metaphysical Store Vandalized in Alaska: A Pagan-owned shop in Soldotna, Alaska was vandalized with a large wooden cross last week, the first time such an act has taken place in the small town.

“An Alaska store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs. The Peninsula Clarion reported 45-year-old Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye’ Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap. Gonzalez says she believes in spiritualism rather than organized religion. She also said her father fought and died in Vietnam for religious and personal freedoms.”

The Peninsula Clarion interviewed Gonzalez, who called the action “pathetic”, and expressed surprise that the cross wasn’t on fire. You can find out more about Pye’Wackets at their Witchvox listing. The question now is if this was an isolated prank, pulled by bored teenagers, or if it signals something more sinister.

Sarah Palin’s Christianity: Speaking of Alaska and witch-hunts, religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman points to an emerging debate between former governor Sarah Palin and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend about the nature of religion within the realm of politics. It seems that Palin, in her new book “America By Heart”, criticizes John F. Kennedy for his famous speech about his Catholicism. This has lead Townsend, a niece of JFK, to pen an editorial in the Washington Post criticizing Palin’s views.

“Palin writes that when she was growing up, she was taught that Kennedy’s speech had “succeeded in the best possible way: It reconciled public service and religion without compromising either.” Now, however, she says she has revisited the speech and changed her mind. She finds it “defensive . . . in tone and content” and is upset that Kennedy, rather than presenting a reconciliation of his private faith and his public role, had instead offered an “unequivocal divorce of the two.” Palin’s argument seems to challenge a great American tradition, enshrined in the Constitution, stipulating that there be no religious test for public office. A careful reading of her book leads me to conclude that Palin wishes for precisely such a test. And she seems to think that she, and those who think like her, are qualified to judge who would pass and who would not.”

While I doubt Palin would blatantly call for a religion test to high office, her allies in C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation, who regularly engage in spiritual warfare against Pagans, and helped nurture her career, certainly would. The fact that two of the Republican front-runner for 2012 presidential elections, Palin and Mike Huckabee, have ties to Christian groups and figures (like David Barton, for instance) who would deny Pagans their basic constitutional protections is chilling. The more we insist on an unofficial religious tests in campaigns, the closer we get to real ones.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

As we start to head into December, religion reporters are starting to craft their lists of the top news stories for this past year. Of Sacred and Secular’s Joshunda Sanders has posted a top ten list already, and Kevin Eckstrom of the Religion News Service found 2010 to be a year when older stories were “resurrected”.

“The Roman Catholic Church wasn’t the only institution battling a sense of deja vu, as some of the most controversial religion stories from the past 20 years returned to the headlines. A 1994-style fight over health care reform not only pitted Republicans against Democrats, but also Catholic bishops against Catholic nuns. Lingering questions about President Obama’s Christian faith morphed into a belief among one in five Americans that he’s actually a Muslim. Nearly 10 years after 9/11, Islamophobia returned with a vengeance as a Florida pastor threatened to torch a pile of Qurans, and Tennessee officials debated whether Islam is actually a religion. This time, the resurrected stories were more pointed, the debates more polarizing. Old stories found new life online, and voices that once would have been dismissed as extreme were amplified by the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.”

Eckstrom quotes religion and media scholar Diane Winston that “new media has had the effect of keeping certain news stories alive, bringing them back from the dead and propelling them into the news.” Looking at my own Pagan-centric picks for top stories of 2009, I can already see some continuity with the list I’m putting together for this year, and I think few will deny that new media had a big amplifying and extending effect on several religious stories this past year (take Christine O’Donnell, please).

While most religion reporters will be focusing on the Pope, the Park 51 building, or atheist Christopher Hitchen’s battle with cancer, I’d like to get your input and feedback on what you thought the biggest religion stories were from a Pagan perspective. What events do you feel shaped us this year? What stories do you think will end up having repercussions for years to come? Your feedback can help me put me own list together, and maybe I’ll highlight some of your recommendations at the end of December.

Just a few quick news notes for you this Saturday.

Subcultural Red Light Districts: The aptly-named city of Banning, California is looking to adopt changes to its zoning codes, targeting certain kinds of businesses.

“Under the proposed development standards, tattoo and body-piercing parlors, hookah and smoking lounges and businesses that specialize in fortunetelling or occult arts would be kept away from schools and parks, residential neighborhoods and businesses that sell alcohol and adult merchandise. Their hours of operation would be limited. Someone who wants to open this type of business in Banning would have to obtain a conditional use permit from the city. Such permits cost $4,779 and have to be approved by the Planning Commission.”

They are, in essence, working to make sure no-one opens a tattoo parlor, occult shop, or smoking parlor in any place where people might congregate. They can’t even open near an “adult” book shop! This is how you ban certain kinds of businesses without actually banning them, make the barriers so high few can surmount them. It remains to be seen if singling out such businesses like this is legal, or will hold up to litigation. The city council is scheduled to take up the matter on Jan. 25, 2011.

Teaching Vodou: The Lexington Herald-Leader interviews history professor Jeremy Popkin about his class “Haiti in the Modern World”, which includes a section on the religion of Vodou. According to Popkin, the class was a way for the campus to discuss and explore Haiti after it came to international attention during the January earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince. The paper also interviews Vodou scholar Leslie Brice about the oft-misunderstood faith.

There is a movement to create a centralized way to share information about voodoo. There is now a federation of voodoo practitioners in Haiti. But efforts to alter what for hundreds of years has been a religion passed down as an oral tradition have encountered resistance, said independent voodoo scholar Leslie Brice, who spoke at UK earlier this fall. Some of the resistance is because people fear the religion will be mocked by those who don’t really understand it, Brice said. Voodoo is often portrayed in popular culture, especially movies, as a singularly dark force, said Brice, who is studying to be a voodoo priestess. But, she said, it really is a religion centered on healing. When slaves were first brought to Haiti they came with “nothing except for what was in their minds and hearts,” she said. The religious traditions they brought with them were crucial to their survival, she said.

In a culture that often depicts Vodou as a detriment to Haiti’s future, and often only reports on it when something horrific happens, classes like these are vitally needed to educate people as to Vodou’s true nature and legacy. Classes like these, along with an emerging “Vodou voice”, may be essential to preserving this faith at a time when Haiti is in serious crisis.

Saving the Wicker Man Library: The Whithorn Library, the front of which was featured in 1973 cult classic film The Wicker Man, is in danger of being closed down due to government austerity measures. Jan Cole, and other campaigners, are trying to rally support to stop the historic library from being shut down.

The "Wicker Man" Library

“The library is part of the famous Wickerman Trail which popular with tourist fans as well as, surprisingly, stag parties who have been known to turn up in fancy dress. Occasionally fans will be seen to re-enact the film, or take a rubbing of the plaque outside.”

A sit-in protest was held last week, and there already seems to be some response from local government. Hopefully this site will be spared, not only because it was in a cult film that many of us love, but because libraries are wonderful things that should be honored and protected! You can keep track of the campaign at their official Facebook group.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!