From: peterh@netcom.com (Peter John Harrison)
Subject: Wicca and the SCA
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 23:09:02 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Summary: The SCA re-affirms it's restriction of Pagan worship

Background: over in rec.org.sca is a discussion of the SCA's policy prohibiting
the incorporation of pentagrams on armory items.  I don't usually post here,

>Greetings from Arval!  I wrote:

>> The swastika and the pentagram may not be registered in SCA armory
>> because the corporation does not want to give its sanction to the use of
>> these symbols which are intimately associated in the modern mind with
>> mass murder.

>Since there seems to be some misunderstanding, let me offer a
>clarification: The corporation's ruling applies to SCA armory, and only to
>SCA armory.  You can display pentacles in any other context.  The
>corporation does not regulate decoration; if you really wanted to come to
>an event festooned in swastikas, there is no rule to stop you.

>Peter Harrison replied:

>> Come, now.  Please don't tell me you think there is _any_ religious symbol
>> not associated with mass murder.

>You are certainly correct, but the SCA, Inc. exists and conducts business
>is the 20th century, primarily in North America.  Therefore, when it
>considers the dangers of popular misunderstanding, it focuses on popular
>perceptions in that world.  How the cross was viewed in 13th century Egypt,
>or how the US flag is viewed in modern Iran is not relevent to this
>discussion: In upholding the ban on pentacles in SCA armory, the
>corporation was not making a moral judgement.  It was simply protecting its
>_business_ interests.

>> The U.S.A. ... [was] built on a framework of tolerance for individual
>> expressions of political and personal belief. 

>Indeed, but not to the point of endangering others.  In the realm of
>personal rights where the Bill of Rights operates, there are obvious
>exceptions: You do not have the right to express yourself by standing up in
>a crowded theater and yelling "Fire!".  But the current question does not
>deal only with your personal expression; it also deals with using the
>resources of the SCA, Inc.  The corporation has every right to decide how
>its resources will be used and it certainly has a right to refrain from
>activities which it believes will endanger itself.

>> The Constitution has the balls to stand up to that kind of opression.  No
>> one should have the right to tell me what religions are "acceptable."

>Depends on the context: I have every right to tell you what you can do in
>my home.  I am a private person, and I have the right to run my own affairs
>as I see fit.  The SCA, Inc. (like every corporation) is a private
>organization, and within limits it also has the right to run its own
>affairs.  You can express your religion any way you want USING YOUR OWN
>RESOURCES.  Once you start using the corporation's resources, you're in
>someone else's home and you have to respect his opinion.

Yes, I agree, the SCA is a 20th century organization, with real concerns
about it's public image, but restricting the religious expression of any
single group, while allowing others to express their faith is wrong.

If the SCA has concerns about their public image as pertains to a religious
expression, it should restrict all such expressions.  Or put another way,
if an individual with a strong Christian faith feels he is afforded a 
"special blessing" when he bears weaponry with his religious icon on it, is
it fair and chivalrous to prevent another individual with a strong Wiccan 
belief his own "special blessing," just because his faith is less under- 
stood by the populace at large?  

This policy is a bad one.  It amounts to religious McCarthyism or a toned-
down inquisition.  It attacks the beliefs of many of those within the SCA,
simply because their faith differs from that of the majority.  And, yes,
I do mean *attacks*, in the same way that telling a woman she should "act
more feminine" at work attacks her worth in the workplace, or letting "a 
nigger know" he's not wanted in the apartment complex attacks his self-esteem.

It's time the SCA started respecting the religious beliefs of all it's
members, not just the ones that are "politically correct."  Yes, it takes
an act of courage to do what's right, but isn't that what chivalry - and the
SCA - is all about??

============================================================================
Peter John Harrison
peterh@netcom.com