From: ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Moderation (was Pentagrams)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 22:48:52 EST
Organization: Ailanthus Project

bwilson@eng.AUburn.EDU (Brian Scott Wilson) writes:

> In article NsXHoB3w164w@ailanth.UUCP, ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T.
> >ok, we're not the society of cults.  granted.  but peopel get to run 
> >around dripping with christian stuff.  some of us ARE pagans and DO haev 
> >pagan personae.  do you want the gay SCAers not to hold hands in public 
> >because someone might not like it too?
> >
> Well personally I must admit that I would prefer it.  I have a  good friend 
> that is gay and I find that the reason a can feel comfortable with him and
> learn a bit more about who he is, is that he doesn't come accross as a fag.
> (his Word)

not aq lot i can say to that.  if you prefer closeted people, that's up 
to you, i guess.  but i hope you realize that asking some people not to 
hold hands and be affectionate while not asking that of others is unfair.
and also that they aren't going to stop to suit you...

> 
> > 
> >*shrug*  i almost hate to be callous, but that is YOUR problem.  some of 
> >us have broken free fo our repressive families and really don't CARE what 
> >the southern baptists think of us and have NO intention of living their 
> >lives wondering when they are going to complain.  they're complaining 
> >already.  the fact that fundamentalist and other chirstian loonies hate 
> >me and mine is part of life.  i have no respect for people who want to 
> >get in good withe the people who want me to quite literally DIE.
> >
> 
> You are totally correct. It is my problem. I have had to deal with it before.
> a member of my clan is some type of neo-pagan we get along great party and dr
> and all that. He also has a truck with a BORN AGAIN PAGAN bumper sticker.  Th
> is also an SCA sticker inm the window. When at work one day I had a fellow wo
> ask me if I was a pagan (he knew that I was in the SCA). He didn't say much e
> when I tried to explain that the SCA is very open and allowed all religions. 
> I then noticed several different people make comments about church during 
> conversations. Finally someone came out and asked me where I went to church. 
> Three months later I was laid off even though I had more senority than other 
> people.I don't know if there is a connection but I'm back in school while 
> my wife supportsme.

i ope also that you noticed that the bigotry you faced for bneiing 
adssociated with a pagan is nothgin on what your compatriot faces fer 
BEING a pagan.  but it is not your friend's place to maintain a closet so 
that other people around him are not accused of being pagans...

> 
> My family has no problem with what I do they are well educated and have known
> interests since I was a little boy. My father also is an accountant and owns 
> own practice and thus cannot afford to have potential customers go elsewhere 
> because his son is thought to be a "devil worshiping pagan". I am not getting
> in good with people who want you to die, but I would like to protect my famil
> Face it, if comes down to a choice between them and you (as Aengus says) "sor
> Babe, your outa here".

pragmatic enough.  pardon me if i feel likewise.  peopl ehave 
disassociated with me before because they are afraid of being thought as 
wierd as i am.  i had hoped that that went out with high school, but i 
guess that's life...

> 
[deleted some stuff that i can't argue with]

>  
> > some of us live our entire lives as peopel the 
> >fundies hate.  and we even manage to haev jobs and housing and friends 
> >and family and everything.  keeping the fundioes off someone else's case 
> >is not something i worry about.  and i'm not going to spend the rest pof 
> >my life ducking and covering because people i knwp might have fundy 
> >relatives...
> 
> Second, it seems that some of us also live our lives as poeple the fundies
> hate. The problem is that it is misdirected anger not due me. I also had a jo
> which may or may not be gone due to this. Remember this is a society based on
> chivalry, consider showing some of it towards those whom you supposedly like
> enough to play this game with. If those poeple are not important enough to 
> you to take a bit of time and forsight not to hurt with your other pastimes
> then you have missed the point. If the SCA is nothing but a place you come 
> and be pagan on a weekend, then go start you own organization for pagan shit.

one: paganism is no more a passtime than christianity., judaism, 
hinduism, or any other religion is.

two: i am a lesbian pagan everywhere i go.  i do not suddenly become a 
heterosexual christian at events.  these are attitudes that i have to 
deal with every day of my life.  sorry you got hit by them too, but i 
would think that would make you a littel more sympathetic toward 
religious and other sorts of minorities, having had a taste of what we go 
through all the time, rather than blaming US for somethign that is nto 
OUR creation, but that of heterosexual christian society.  i am no more 
going to hide either my religion or my sexual orientation than you are.  
fundamentalist attitudes suck.  but they are not somethign i am willing 
to run my life around.  i choose to be proud of who i am, let the chips 
fall where they may.  blaming pagans for fundamentalist bigotry is abnout 
as fair as blaming women for rape.

                                      -Walburga Ingsdottir
                                       (mka ailsa)


                ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com
 
"If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it."
                            _Ohio state Senator Linda Furney
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