Monday, February 18, 2008

The Faces of Evil?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," on this day when we celebrate the birthday of the first and last decent Republican! And even ol' Honest Abe used the same playbook. He suspended habeus corpus, threw folks in prison just on the say-so of their neighbors. Freed some of the slaves, some of the time. Jeez, the more I write, the more Republican he sounds!

At our last meeting of Grove of the Black Oak, my daughter The Heir snapped this group photo. It was Imbolc, and for one reason or another, more than half our usual members could not attend the Ritual.


I have to laugh when I look at this picture. Even if you are a Pagan, usually when you hear that a group is Pagan, it conjures in your mind some offbeat people, people who perhaps dress differently or are slightly more flamboyant in temperament, or whatnot.

Look at us! Could you honestly and truly discern that we're Druids, and not Methodists, or cousins at a family reunion, or -- gassssssp -- a Bible study group taking a break at a Focus on the Family convention?

So if we don't look evil, and don't act evil, and don't think evil thoughts, why are people calling us evil just because we don't want to say "one nation under God" while pledging the flag?

Every time the God stuff has been challenged in the courts, it has always been by atheists. I would love to see the American Pagan community become so large that it could mount a lawsuit against the God stuff in government, from dolla dolla bills to the Pledge.

Rick Santorum says we're a nation founded on Judeo-Christian underpinnings. That may be true, but we're also a nation founded on the principles of religious freedom, and in this country at this time, more and more of us are removing the Judeo-Christian pins and worshipping other ways.

And we are all Americans. Rather ordinary-looking Americans at that.

I'm Anne Johnson, and I approved this ad.

5 comments:

yellowdoggranny said...

where did you stash all the sacrificed animals..

I just love the look on peoples faces when they ask me my religion and i say pagan...it's shock, disbelief and then....fear..
i fucking love it..
when people ask me if ive found jesus i always yell, 'Jesus, are you lost again?...damn...' or'find him...hell I didn't even know he was lost...should we send out the texa rangers and see if they can find him...?....life is good..

BBC said...

This God thing is never going to go away, it's one of the most said words on this planet. But it's just a spirituality only, not an omnipotent bogyman in the sky.

And it's not one nation under God, it's one world under God.

Anonymous said...

Oh speak it, sistah! I also like to think the vast majority of honest pagandom consists of unobtrusive, law-abiding, normal folks hiding amongst the non-pagans.

We need not wear big ol' honkin' pentagrams the size of dinner plates or go grocery shopping in our fancy ritual gear in order to be legit.

Yeah, we're under god...but the question of which one....well, that's in the eye, mind and heart of the one walking the path.

Huzzah!

Anonymous said...

Well, I know at least Congress is under one God. A Goddess actually. The top of the Capitol building is crowned by none other than Lady Liberty Herself. Seriously, go look.

Yewtree said...

Y'know I sometimes complain about Britain being a monarchy - but at least we can see the person we're under (i.e. the Queen). And she's not too heavy, nor is she supposed to be omnipotent and all the other omni-thingummies.