In 2008 the Libertarian Party nominated former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr as their candidate for President of the United States. Many modern Pagans who consider themselves libertarians/Libertarians were displeased by this turn of events, as Barr had notoriously tried to ban Pagans from serving in the military, claiming that equal rights for Wiccans and Pagans set  “a dangerous precedent that could easily result in the practice of all sorts of bizarre practices being supported by the military under the rubric of ‘religion.’ ” However, what was acceptable behavior in the Republican party of 1999 wasn’t going to pass muster with Libertarian live-and-let-live notions of freedom, and so Barr kinda-sorta recanted his position.

“I got to ask Barr a question I’ve wanted to ask him for quite some time. He’s repudiated and apologized for many of his previous positions and I asked him if he would repudiate his absurd anti-Wiccan crusade of 1999, when he wanted all Wiccans banned from the military. He said yes, with a bit of hemming and hawing. He said that he had reports from several military leaders that Wiccans doing rituals on military bases were causing problems and that’s why he did what he did, but that since that time it’s become clear that there are no problems with allowing Wiccans to serve and to practice their religion on military bases like any other religion. I did ask him for any specific problems that were reported to him back in 1999 by these military leaders, but he said he didn’t want to get into specifics. I’m sure that’s because there are no specific incidents and those military leaders who complained to him did so out of bigotry, or because the problems it caused were really caused by bigotry against Wiccans.”

Sadly, this change of heart seemed to only last as long as the presidential campaign, once he no longer had to curry political favor his obvious scorn for modern Paganism reemerged. Barr’s moral compass seems more guided by what will enrich him at any moment, than from a recognizable ethical philosophy, and his ongoing prominence within the Libertarian Party no doubt continues to keep many small-l libertarian Pagans at arms length from the party that purports to represent their views.

Johnson and Barr on Fox News together in 2010.

Now, it seems, there might be an alternative for Pagan libertarians/Libertarians in the form of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who just announced that he’s abandoning his bid for the Republican presidential nomination to run on the Libertarian Party ticket.

“This was both a difficult decision – and an easy one,” Johnson said. “I have a lot of Republican history, and a lot of Republican supporters. But in the final analysis…I am a Libertarian – that is someone who is fiscally very conservative but holds freedom-based positions on the issues that govern our personal behavior.”

You can read his full statement, here. Johnson, in stark contrast to Barr, openly courted modern Pagans in a now-famous press conference with Pagan and Hindu media representatives (The American Spectator calls him a “pro-choice pursuer of the pagan vote”). I saw it as a hopeful harbinger that our political system could embrace the full religious and philosophical diversity of our county.

“What does it all mean? I think it represents two opportunities. First, there’s an opportunity for politicians to realize that America’s religious diversity isn’t simply a stock phrase to pull out when describing the virtues of our country. According to the Pew Forum, 16.1 percent of Americans claim no formal religion, while another 2.3 percent are part of religious tradition outside the Christian-Jewish-Muslim monotheistic paradigm. Those aren’t insignificant numbers, and they put the often lumped-together “other/unaffiliated” category on a statistical par with evangelical and mainline Protestants. Despite this, moral debates are almost always framed along a left-right Christian axis; Rick Warren gets to interview Obama and McCain, while Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, and practitioners of indigenous traditions rarely get to ask questions on a national stage. Gov. Johnson’s courage in talking to religious minorities might have been driven by a modicum of desperation in getting his message out, but it should be seen as a harbinger of what campaigning to religious groups will be like in the future.”

Already, some are wondering if a Johnson Libertarian run could act as a spoiler for the Republicans in 2012, though a Libertarian spokesperson pointed out that (aside from the libertarian-beloved Ron Paul) “you can’t spoil tainted meat.”

“All of the Republican Party presidential candidates ” except for Ron Paul ” have a track record of voting for higher levels of government spending. Many have raised taxes, supported bailouts, and/or voted to expand Big Government.

The mere fact that two Libertarian presidential candidates, one past, and one potential, could have narratives so entwined with modern Pagans is remarkable in of itself. Add to that fact that if Barr should run for the LP nomination again against Johnson (though he endorsed Newt Gingrich, so maybe he won’t) it stands to reason that their respective attitudes towards minority religions will no doubt come up in debates and news stories. Pagan leaders and media should prepare themselves now for mainstream reporters looking into the “Pagan angle” of the Libertarian Party’s 2012 candidate. At the very least libertarian/Libertarian Pagans should be pleased that the party may be moving from Barr to Johnson in 2012, one wonders how many conservative Pagans will jump ship from the Republican Party to support Johnson’s candidacy. Interesting times are ahead.

One week ago, former Haitian dictator/”president-for-life” Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti from exile in France. There’s been much speculation as to why Duvalier, the son of the infamous François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, chose this time to return. Whatever the reason, two days later he was charged with corruption by a Haitian court, though human rights organizations also want him charged for his role in the torture and death of thousands of Haitians. Duvalier, while president of Haiti, was head of a paramilitary force known as the “Tonton Macoutes,” who enforced the will of their leader and used Vodou as an element of psychological warfare against the populace.

Vodou leaders were also members, giving what came to be called the Militia of National Security Volunteers (known as MVSN, for its French acronym) an almost-religious aura. Opponents were killed in the night and their bodies were often placed on public display. “The Duvaliers are estimated to have ordered the deaths of between twenty and thirty thousand Haitian civilians,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement this week.

Employing vodou leaders and illiterate peasants was integral to the Duvalier’s method of overseeing the torture and murder of political opponents and robbed public funds, biographer Elizabeth Abbott writes in Foreign Policy. “Duvalier’s genius lay in how he designed their hierarchical structure, chose their (usually humble) social origins, and included priests (voodoon and Christian) and rural section chiefs who ruled their fiefdoms with iron fists and reported personally to him any subversive activity or even thought.”

Despite this, some Haitians, including Vodouisants, have welcomed the return of Duvalier, seeing his family’s reign as a time of relative stability, and preferable to the policies of left-leaning president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (currently in exile) and his supporters. That number may include Max Beauvoir, the appointed “supreme master” of a coalition of Haitian houngans, who has been linked to Baby Doc by the New York Times.

“Voodoo and politics have long been intertwined in Haiti, with some past leaders reaching out to voodooists as a way of burnishing their populist credentials. Beauvoir has himself been linked with François Duvalier, or Baby Doc, the dictator who fled the country in 1986 after a popular uprising against him. And Beauvoir opposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s rule, becoming a hated figure among loyalists of the former Catholic priest.”

So the return of Duvalier has introduced a new element of instability in an already unstable situation. Dredging up a past that is still fresh for many Haitians. Into this morass comes conservative Libertarian politician Bob Barr, who is now acting as the former dictator’s “voice to the world.”

“Now, with Duvalier once again seeking to become a public figure in Haiti, he is working to rebuild his public image in the eyes of both Haitians and the international community. In order to do this, he has enlisted the help of numerous U.S. attorneys, including none other than former Libertarian Party presidential candidate and Clinton impeachment champion former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA). Barr will serve as the former dictator’s “voice to the world,” and he told CNN that he plans to bring Duvalier’s “message of hope to the world“ [...] One has to wonder how Barr — who ran for president in 2008 to “deliver a refreshing message of liberty” — can reconcile his supposed right-libertarian beliefs with being on the payroll of a notorious autocrat who shut down elections and the free press and tortured nonviolent dissidents.”

Barr is a known quantity to many in the modern Pagan community for his 1999 campaign to have Wiccans banned from military service. A stance he (somewhat) recanted in 2008 when running for president on the Libertarian party ticket, only to re-embrace it once he longer had to curry political favor.

“… if I were in the Air Force and was being commanded by an officer who practices hedonism as a religion (another part of the definition of “pagan”), and who dances around a circle of stones in the woods carrying a lighted candle, I would be more than a little worried about following him into battle.”

So it seems that Pagans serving in (and receiving fair accommodation from) the United States military is something he doesn’t like, but acting as an ambassador for an ousted ruler who happily employed practitioners of Vodou in a paramilitary organization that terrorized Haiti is just fine. As for the well-documented crimes against humanity and his country perpetrated by Duvalier, they are, according to Barr, mere “allegations.”

Barr, who represented Georgia’s 7th District from 1995 to 2003, and was the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nominee, said Saturday that the allegations against Duvalier are just that. ”I deal with allegations all the time,” he said. “They are the cheapest commodity on the market.”

What we are witnessing is a desperate PR campaign by a fallen dictator, one who is already cynically manipulating an already desperate people. Whether Duvalier came of his own accord, or was manipulated into place by the Haitian government or the international community, few can determine what the results of introducing this wild card may be. However this goes, his presence does not signal the salvation of any community in Haiti, certainly not those who practice Vodou, and his alliance with Barr should raise many troubling questions as to how this came about and who exactly benefits.

Top Story: It seems like every time I think I’m done mentioning the antics of  Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, that subject of documentary filmmakers, and founder of the “Vampyres, Witches, and Pagans Party”, somehow manages to do something even more extreme and ill-advised to gain press attention. After recently landing in jail for threatening the judge who was overseeing a case than involved Sharkey harassing an under-aged girl, he’s now at the center of a drama involving another under-age girl, whom he helped run away from home and is/was proposing to marry as soon as she reached the age of consent (she’s 16 currently).

“In an e-mail to the Red Wing (Minn.) Republican Eagle newspaper, Brewer insisted the decision to join Sharkey was her choice. “I pretty much told Jonathon either he come meet up with me or I would walk to New Jersey on my own,” she wrote, referencing Sharkey’s native state. But Collins said police do have some concerns about the man who in 2009 was convicted of harassment in Olmsted County after a Rochester, Minn., teen broke off an online relationship with Sharkey. “Anytime you have a 44-year-old man hooking up with a 16-year-old, there’s a concern,” Collins said.”

Yes, men in their 40s trolling the Internet looking for under-age brides is “concerning”. Sharkey posted a video on Youtube that accused Paige Brewer’s mother of hitting her, and detailing their plans to marry and have kids as soon as Paige is of age.

However, despite the threatening montage of Sharkey hitting a punching bag, and detailing his plans of judicial revenge once he’s “king” of Minnesota, Brewer was taken into custody yesterday after an arranged meeting with social services. No charges are currently being filed against Sharkey, but he is being questioned by police.

I think we’ve reached a point where those covering Sharkey’s exploits need to acknowledge that he’s not some jokey vampire-witch punchline any longer, but a criminal who has shown a pattern of having inappropriate, and sometimes threatening, interactions with young girls.  A rational man, when confronted with a teenager who claims to have been abused, would go to social services first, not try and marry them. A sane man would understand that this behavior is the behavior of a predator, not a loving individual. I can only hope that something is done before yet another troubled teenager falls into his all-encompassing delusion.

In Other News:

Post-PantheaCon Ponderings: It’s been a few days since PantheaCon in San Jose, and we’re starting get some reflections and round-ups from participants. First, Thorn Coyle discusses the blurry distinctions between “serious seekers” and “party Pagans” at the event, finding that perhaps such divisions aren’t productive.

We all have our own journey to the sacred within. Who am I to say that one person’s journey is less serious than my own? Trust me, I’ve done my own fair share of carping about people whom I want to respect but who’s methods, outlook, or “fruits”, I don’t quite understand or may even disagree with. But I simultaneously have to admit to myself that I simply cannot know the core state of their hearts and souls. Unless they come to me for advice, I simply must say, “their path belongs to them” and then decide whether or not I want to lend time and energy to that relationship or not. What I cannot do is decide definitively whether or not their search is “serious.”

Meanwhile, Gwion Raven explored what the “back to basics” theme really meant this year, Cosette gives a first-timers perspective and says some nice things about me, Lupa discusses her Bear Performance Ritual, the COG NPIO blog says some nice things about my talk, Frater Barrabbas discusses some of the more ritual magic-focused events, Frater POS discusses his class at Pantheacon, Stella of Revealing had some interesting insights concerning my talk, Donald Michael Kraig has a few interesting Pantheacon-related posts you should read, and Erynn Laurie has several posts concerning her PantheaCon adventure. If you have some PantheaCon related thoughts or wrap-ups you want to share, please leave a link in the comments.

The Invisibility of Vodou: Samuel Freedman at the New York Times looks at the bad and uneven press Haitian Vodou has gotten since an earthquake devastated the country on January 12th. The core of Freedman’s essay is how reporters and editorial-writers have overlooked the centrality of that faith in Haiti.

“Crude and harsh as Mr. Robertson’s words were, he deserved a perverse kind of credit for one thing. He actually did recognize the centrality of voodoo to Haiti. In the voluminous media coverage of the quake and its aftermath, relatively few journalists and commentators have done so, and even fewer have gotten voodoo right.”

It’s actually interesting how much of his column echoes a good portion of my coverage here at The Wild Hunt. I say this not to brag, but as a vindication of the fact that this issue of Vodou in Haiti is an important one that deserved more attention and understanding than it generally received from the mainstream media. I’m glad that more reporters are picking up on these threads.

Bob Barr Isn’t Making Friends: On Wednesday I mentioned how former Libertarian candidate and Republican Senator Bob Barr has reverted back to his Pagan-hating ways, with a two-faced article mocking Pagan soldiers. Now journalist Ed Brayton, the man who got him to originally recant his anti-Pagan views on-the-record, is hopping mad.

“F**k you, Bob Barr. You obviously lied to me and you are just as bigoted and stupid as you were when you were in Congress.”

Ouch! Something tells me folks, especially Libertarian folks (and military folks), won’t get fooled again.

How Often Do You Write Letters to Your God/dess? In a final note, Thaindian News reports on a little post office near the banks of the Ganga river (aka the Ganges river) in Kachhla town of Uttar Pradesh that receives dozens of letters every day addressed to “Ganga Maiya” (the goddess personification of the Ganga river).

“Today those dashing off letters don’t just pray for a cure to their ailments; they write on auspicious occasions as well. Once the letters reach the Kachhla post office, the postmen take them to the river bank and drop them into the water. “Be it any festival - Holi, Diwali, or birthdays, marriages, mundan (tonsure ceremonies) or house warming, people seek blessings from Ganga Maiya by writing letters,” Satya Pal Singh, a sugarcane farmer, told IANS. “Residents here believe the letter serves as an invitation to Ganga Maiya, who will then visit their home and bless them, in turn bringing good luck and prosperity,” he added.”

Which makes me wonder, do any of you send formal invitations to your deities? If so, where do you send them?

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

Top Story: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released a new study, entitled “Religion Among the Millennials”, that tracks the beliefs and views of the generation born after 1981 (and who largely came of age in the year 2000, hence the name).  The report asserts that Millenials are far more “unaffiliated”, religiously speaking, than the previous two generations, and less concerned about “culture war” issues like gay marriage and abortion than their predecessors.

“Young people are more accepting of homosexuality and evolution than are older people. They are also more comfortable with having a bigger government, and they are less concerned about Hollywood threatening their values. But when asked generally about morality and religion, young adults are just as convinced as older people that there are absolute standards of right and wrong that apply to everyone. Young adults are also slightly more supportive of government efforts to protect morality and of efforts by houses of worship to express their social and political views.”

As for Millenials and modern Paganism, 2% of adults aged 18-29 adhere to a Pagan, New Age, Unitarian-Universalist, or “eclectic” faith (the “other faiths”). Outstripping adherence to Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and roughly tied with Judaism and Mormonism. Further, Millenials are about tied with Baby Boomers in adherence to an “other” faith, with Generation X making up the demographically largest grouping. You can download the entire report, here. You may also want to take a look at Pew’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey, something I’ve covered in depth here, which much this data is culled from.

What does it all mean? It could certainly mean a more tolerant world, as an overwhelming majority of this generation believe there is more than “one true way”, and that the Bible isn’t the literal word of God. Less than half even believe that religion is important. Millenials, along with Generation X, represent a sea-change in attitudes that have so bitterly divided previous generations. A “post-Christian” future, one where Christianity is only one voice among many, seems ever more likely. A world where religion may be female-dominated and largely private. Sounds like a future I’d like to stick around for.

In Other News:

Did the Founders Mean Pagans Too? The Newsweek/Washington Post religion site On Faith features an editorial from Dr. Barbara McGraw, Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism at Saint Mary’s College of California. In it she addresses the now-infamous WallBuilders amicus brief in McCollum v. California that argues the Constitutional religion clauses only applied to monotheists.

“…perhaps Richard Henry Lee put it best when he said in 1787: “It is true, we are not disposed to differ much, at present, about religion; but when we are making a constitution, it is to be hoped, for ages and millions yet unborn . . . .” In other words, those who differ about religion in ages and among millions yet unborn are included in the protections of the Constitution. What is especially sad about the narrow way that Barton wants to interpret the founding era is that Barton’s approach obscures the real contribution of Christianity to America: support for a political system that protects the individual’s relationship with the Divine (however understood) … genuine Christianity supports religious rights for all. Christianity was not at the founding, nor is it now a monolithic “ism” that justifies the domination and suppression of others–not even Wiccan/Pagans.”

I’d recommend reading all the various quotes she offers, building the case that the founders meant for religious freedom to apply to all Americans, at all stages of its existence, no matter what that future may bring. You can expect to hear a lot more about Patrick McCollum’s case in the near future, when I spoke to him at Pantheacon it was clear that a lot of attention and interest is building in this case. Expect things to break out into the mainstream media very soon.

Anti-Pagan Smears: WorldNetDaily, where no nutty conspiracy theory goes unloved, touts the new book by its managing editor David Kupelian, entitled “How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America”. Along with the usual stuff, Obama is a Marxist, Hollywood is bad, public schools are turning boys into big sissies, mental illness is a scam, etc, we get a whole section on the dangers of Paganism and the “New Age”.

“Why are neo-pagan and New Age religions like Wicca becoming so popular? (America’s increasing disillusionment with Christianity has created a giant cultural and spiritual vacuum, into which alternative religions are being drawn.)”

Now, I’ve covered WND’s anti-Pagan stuff before, but I usually just ignore it nowadays. However, since Kupelian’s new book is being promoted by a major publisher, and he’s making the publicity rounds with conservative heavyweights like Sean Hannity, I thought this deserved a bit of attention. It matters in this instance, because the folks who like to gobble up those pop-journalism partisan books (from the left and right) that burn up the bestsellers lists will be getting a bit more than political opinion. They’ll also be getting anti-Pagan talking points. It’s not very pretty when political populism starts mixing with intolerant religious ideologies, so we should keep our eyes open.

Bob Barr Recants Recanting His Anti-Pagan Views: If you all were wondering what conservative/libertarian politician-turned-pundit Bob Barr thinks about the Air Force Academy building a Pagan worship area, wonder no longer!

Al Gore wasn’t the only surprise appearance at this year’s Netroots Nation conference. Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Bob Barr also happened to drop by. Ed Brayton, who blogs at Dispatches From the Culture Wars, was on-hand and managed to ask Barr a question that has been on the minds of many politically-oriented Pagans. Does he now repudiate his anti-Wiccan campaign from 1999?

Bob Barr: Totally lovin' the Wiccans now.

“I got to ask Barr a question I’ve wanted to ask him for quite some time. He’s repudiated and apologized for many of his previous positions and I asked him if he would repudiate his absurd anti-Wiccan crusade of 1999, when he wanted all Wiccans banned from the military. He said yes, with a bit of hemming and hawing. He said that he had reports from several military leaders that Wiccans doing rituals on military bases were causing problems and that’s why he did what he did, but that since that time it’s become clear that there are no problems with allowing Wiccans to serve and to practice their religion on military bases like any other religion. I did ask him for any specific problems that were reported to him back in 1999 by these military leaders, but he said he didn’t want to get into specifics. I’m sure that’s because there are no specific incidents and those military leaders who complained to him did so out of bigotry, or because the problems it caused were really caused by bigotry against Wiccans.”

So you see, Barr was merely concerned by “reports” he had received. Reports that he doesn’t want to get into “specifics” on. That deep concern is obviously what led him to say things like this:

“A print of the painting, “The Prayer At Valley Forge,” depicting George Washington on bended knee, praying in the hard snow at Valley Forge, hangs over the desk in my office. If the practice of witchcraft, such as is allowed now at Fort Hood, is permitted to stand, one wonders what paintings will grace the walls of future generations,”

Or this:

“And we wonder why we have kids that are drifting around aimlessly when the United States Army allows not faith in God, but witches to worship on military bases by active duty military personnel; and the best that we can tell our young people and our service people is that we have to struggle through this.”

It is obvious that these statements stem from a deep concern about military order, and not from religious bigotry. I mean, it isn’t like he tried to ban Pagans practice from the military entirely, oh wait, you mean he did?

“The $290 billion defense bill allowed lawmakers to fund Stealth bombers and tanks, but for Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), it also meant a chance to keep witches and peyote out of the barracks and bunkers. Barr’s two amendments to the defense appropriations bill would outlaw the practice of Wicca — a form of witchcraft that worships nature — and the use of the hallucinogenic drug, peyote, on military bases … Barr was unimpressed by the fact that some bases, such as Fort Hood in Texas, have allowed the practice of Wicca for three years without any problems. “I perceive it as a problem,” he said.”

If only he had told us then about those super-secret reports (from “military leaders”) that he can’t divulge “specifics” from. Maybe his anti-Pagan amendment wouldn’t have been tabled. But that is all in the past now! Bob Barr loves Pagans, especially Libertarian Pagans, and wants you to vote for him in the upcoming election. I’m sure his new-found support for religious freedom and free exercise will be unwavering from now on*.

ADDENDUM: I neglected to mention that Joe Max at the Chaotic Good blog tipped me off to this story in the comments of a previous entry. Thanks for pointing it out Joe!

* Unless, you know, he gets some “reports”, secret reports, telling him otherwise.

This past Sunday I mentioned that anti-Pagan bigot Bob Barr had been picked as the official candidate of the Libertarian Party, despite a long and inglorious record of un-libertarian actions. Now Michael Idov, writing for The New Republic, files a report from this year’s contentious Libertarian National Convention. An event filled with uneasy allies across the political and cultural spectrum.

“The movement’s embrace of personal freedom is wide enough to welcome a Wall Street wing concerned mostly with deregulation; a sci-fi contingent dreaming of space colonies and immortality; a sizable anarchist (or “minarchist”) faction preaching dissolution of almost all federal agencies; and, in the last few years, a steady, surly influx of 9/11 “truthers.” All and more of these groups are on proud display in Denver. Vendor booths trumpet Native American mysticism, the “inflation-proof Liberty Dollar,” and, perhaps inevitably, Shotgun Willie’s, a local strip club.”

Idov contrasts former Republican Barr’s candidacy with the campaign staff of former Democrat Mike Gravel. Unlike Barr, Gravel has long embraced a pro-legalization, anti-IRS, pro-science stance popular among many Libertarians, though his run was more a snipe at his former party than a serious bid for the nomination. Despite this fact, he did enjoy some popularity among Libertarians, especially those unhappy with the ascendancy of Barr.

“Gravel is candid about his motives and expectations. He’s mostly mad at the Democrats–who, he says, pushed him out of the race for criticizing the U.S. stance on Iran–and would enjoy a platform from which to dish out some mild payback. His floor team includes Neal, a long-haired Wiccan who has a beef with Barr “because he tried to stop Wiccans from worshiping in the military” and granddaughter Renee, 20 years old and in full Goth regalia featuring a spiky dog collar.”

In the end, none of the more ideologically pure Libertarian candidates gained the nomination, and Barr claimed his prize, though not before some last-minute wheeling and dealing. The result has been deep unhappiness among the Libertarian rank-and-file, especially the younger Libertarians who tend to gravitate to the “left-wing” of the party.

“Inside the hall, a hushed pandemonium breaks out. The Libertarian Party seems to be ungluing before my very eyes. After more than a few people loudly declare their intention to defect on the spot, Steve Kubby goes onstage and pleads with them to stay. Boston Tea Party, a fast-swelling offshoot composed of frustrated anarchists, has put together an alternative nominating convention around the corner, for “serious, radical, Libertarians only.” Neal, Mike Gravel’s Wiccan aide, says he’s going to start his own Wiccan-Libertarian caucus back in Michigan. “The values are virtually identical,” he says.”

Will we see a rupture within Libertarianism? Will the Pagans, pot-smokers, and anarchists leave to form their own parties, while the LP-proper evolves into a sort of second home for disaffected conservative Republicans? While I’m not sure Wiccan and Libertarian values are “virtually identical”, the Libertarian Party has been a sort of home for the more conservative Pagans unhappy with the overly Christian and anti-Pagan flavor of the Republican Party. If the Libertarian Party continues to nominate anti-Pagan conservative Christians, where will these men and women go to find a political home?

I’m back! Did you miss me? I had a lovely vacation at my undisclosed location, and I would like to give a huge thank you to my amazing guest bloggers, who went above and beyond the call of duty to write some wonderfully challenging, moving, and insightful things. I urge my readers to add their blogs (found in the blogroll to your right) to your daily Internet travels, in addition to checking out the many published works they have produced.

Now, let’s catch up on the news…

The Libertarian Party has picked its nominee for President of the United States of America. Former congressional Republican Bob Barr. A puzzling choice considering that Barr’s record isn’t one that lends itself easily to Libertarian values of a small and un-intrusive government.

“Barr not only wrote and sponsored the Defense of Marriage act, but also voted for the Patriot Act; proposed the Pentagon ban a religious group from practice in the military: Wicca; and advocated complete federal prohibition of medical marijuana—succeeding in this last with his “Barr Amendment” – which also forbid any future law that would decrease penalties for marijuana use.”

Barr is widely famous as an anti-Pagan bigot who tried to ban the military from allowing equal access and freedoms to Pagan soldiers, which he claimed set a “dangerous precedent” and that toleration of Paganism led to youth violence. This no doubt leaves many libertarian-leaning Pagans in a quandary, since a vote for Barr is a vote for someone who has actively worked against equality for Pagans.

Another religious freedom battle involving Santeria is brewing. Santeria priest Ernesto Pichardo is threatening litigation if the police dept. in Coral Gables, Florida doesn’t release their records of an incident that occurred last summer.

“Ernesto Pichardo, president of the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, has been trying for almost a year to obtain records relating to the interruption of a Santeria ceremony by police last summer. An attorney he recently hired, David Aelion, has filed a public records request for any documents relating to the incident, which took place June 8. Aelion has requested all the incident reports, any internal investigations reports and communications between officers the day of the incident, as well as photographs taken at the scene, inventory reports and all city communications referring to the scene. ‘We want to find out why they were there for quite a few hours holding them [the practitioners] against their will,’ Aelion told The Miami Herald Friday. ‘It is pretty clear that the U.S. Supreme Court allows them to practice their religion freely. Why did it take many officers and that long to find out that they had no right to be there and no right to bother them?’ He said he was preparing for a possible civil rights violation case.”

According to reports, around two dozen officers with guns drawn interrupted an initiation ceremony after a neighbor reported that he could hear animals suffering. Why dozens of cops with guns drawn were necessary to investigate an animal cruelty complaint remains unknown.

Is the Crowley-inspired horror film “Chemical Wedding” so bad its good?

“Fans of terrible movies shouldn’t miss Chemical Wedding, which contains so many wooden performances it should really have been thinned before release by the forestry commission. Director Julian Doyle shoots the whole thing as though it is a Hammer horror film, and most of the actresses have the Hammer hallmark of being extraordinarily unfit for acting. Most of the cast underact. The one, big – and I do mean big – exception is Simon Callow, who appears to have been taking acting lessons from Brian Blessed and, possibly as a result, gone stark staring bonkers.”

Other reviews seem to be sounding similar notes. All we need is some audience participation, and a regular midnight showing, and we’re good to go! But while “Chemical Wedding” turns Aleister Crowley into a serial-killing horn-dog, works in other mediums are seeking to redeem the great beast, and paint him as a vilified patriot.

“Using documents gleaned from American, British, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 reveals that Crowley’s clandestine service linked him to the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, the Communist International, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. Author Richard Spence, a professor of History at the University of Idaho, argues that Crowley–in his own unconventional way–was a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent.”

Did Crowley court public infamy to cover up his dealings with the government? If so it would certainly cast a new light on some of his actions, and make some detractors re-think his motivations.

Archie Bland of the Independent explores the ramifications of the new laws governing psychic practitioners in Britain. Bland wonders in the article if we aren’t asking the wrong questions as to who is a “bad psychic”.

“…perhaps the question should be recast to consider responsibility. Like the doctor, the sensible psychic’s first rule is probably to do no harm, and while there may be no such thing as a good medium to the ardent materialist, the contrast between those who have a code and those who don’t – between the tactful and the terrifying, the reasonable and the rip-off – is obvious to anyone.”

An interesting and sympathetic look at psychic practitioners and the people who frequent them from an unbiased journalist.

The New York Times has a very nice piece on the dedication of a new Hindu temple on Staten Island in New York (the first for that community).

“For Staten Island’s growing Hindu population, a couple of hours more was not long to wait to finally have its own major temple. After 10 years of worship in private homes and community meeting halls and the not-quite-finished structure of the temple itself on Victory Boulevard, the Staten Island Hindu Temple was formally consecrated in a clangorous three-day ceremony that ended on Sunday. For the 500 Hindu families from all over India who live scattered across the island, the days of having to travel to Queens or Edison, N.J., to worship are over.”

Perhaps we will someday be reading similar stories about the dedication of Pagan temples.

In a final note, the recently renewed gay marriage debate has caused some to connect it with the slow move into a truly post-Christian society. For exa
mple, conservative Christian commentator Rod Dreher claims we are living in a “pagan” sensate culture that will inevitably allow for gay marriage and that the best conservative Christians can do is move to a “defensible position” and wait it out.

“Well, it’s cold comfort, but this can’t go on forever. [Pitirim] Sorokin argues that once sensate culture plays itself out, people will have to yield to an ideational model of some sort. It is doubtful that any culture can long survive without strong, traditional families and durable moral norms based in a transcendental source. Our civilization’s prosperity has masked its social weaknesses.”

Of course there is no promise that any future dominant “ideational” culture will be a Christian one. There are myriad ways to approach perceived “social weakness”, and for thousands of years before Christ was born, those ways were “pagan” ways. Meanwhile, Nick Street at Religion Dispatches argues that the battle over gay marriage has little to do with a moral marriage crisis and a lot to do with the erosion of Biblical authority over American culture.

“…the impulse behind the movement’s anti-gay activism doesn’t really have much to do with marriage and sexuality … The real issues are the authority of the Bible and the nature of revelation … a lot is at stake in a political initiative with deep roots in the foundations of canonical Christianity. If religious conservatives can’t persuade a majority of Californians to heed one element in an otherwise obscure list of purity codes in Deuteronomy – and that Jesus’ preaching in the gospels isn’t really complete without Paul’s finger-wagging in Romans – the stitching that holds together the disparate parts of the Good Book will have subtly but irrevocably loosened, along with the Bible’s centuries-old grip on American public life.”

Christian conservatives are using their remaining weapons of fear-mongering and moral revulsion to hold back the post-Christian tide (of which gay marriage is a potent symbol), but it seems that just about everyone agrees that while Christian activists may win the constitutional battle in California, the larger war is all but lost.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!