From: markbr@radian.UUCP (Mark Roth)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Intolerance and the pagan "community"
Date: 21 Aug 92 18:37:14 GMT

Blessings to all, and esp. to the essence of flame, which I am about to invoke!

Ciaran made a long and excellant post in reply to Liam's cmts regarding not
xian-bashing, and that led to another of my true aggravations (*NOT* about
what *you* said, Ciaran, but along with it): the pagan "community", just like
the Movement before it, and the Old Left before *it*, has gone to bloody
factionalism. "Well, we need to do something, and the time is right to do
something, but (pointing fingers every which way) YOU'VE got the wrong
analysis/ritual/definition, and *I*'m not gonna play revolution/pagan/etc
with you!", followed by a picking up of everyone's toys and going home, 
allowing those who are being screwed to get screwed, and secretly glad *they*
weren't the ones being screwed.

The recent idiotic (IMO, and I won't claim to be humble) flamefest over the
word P/pagan was an obvious example. Nobody wants to agree to differ, and agree
on what we *do* agree on, so that we can get *ON* with all this. Fritter away
all our copious spare time (which, in reality, all this here on the net is
done in) and energy on triviality. We can't *possibly* have a category 
called (neo)P/pagan, who believes in at *least* a metaphorical concept of the 
Goddess, and maybe is of the subset that believes in her as a diety, and another
subset that doesn't, but they both have that as a least common denominator, as 
opposed to other non-JCI religion/philosophies that don't apply such a concept.
*THAT* would be defining words for *ME* (never mind that the purpose of words is
to ->communicate<-, and if there is no common definition, there is no communi-
cation).

Keep it up, folks. Left the Fundamentalist would-be Fascists take over the
country, while we argue in our own little world. Don't look for areas of agree-
ment, rather than differences.  Pick words, like the non-xian Satanists do, 
that *deliberately* obfuscate what they are trying to say/represent. Make it
harder to explain to folks willing to listen what we are, and easier for the
funnymentalists to stick their own labels on us, for their own benifit. 

Goddess (an exclamation, which I *DO* not use in vain), here in psuedo-liberal
Austin, TX, *I* sure don't feel safe in wearing next-to-top shirt button open,
since my pentacle would show, even in a liberal company, that has no (apparent)
problem with gays.  *WHO* would stand up for me? Who would help make sure I
could pay my bills, and child support, if I were to lose my job due to 
religious discrimination? There's a fair pagan community down here, but expect
even 10 people from that community to stand up for me? HAH! I barely know
that many. Everybody's in the same boat I am, and twenty-shitty-four years
of conservatives in office (and Carter was Centrist, so far Centrist that the
point on the picket fence was between his balls) SURE hasn't done much for 
blacks, much less religious minorities that, often enough, aren't even taken
seriously ("it's just a game, it's not for *real*")

Whatever else the UFP is, and no, I think Universal is stupid, but the general
opinion (what little I've heard) is that quibbling over that is trivial, it
is, at least, an ATTEMPT to DO something that will affect the real, socio-
political world in some meaningful way, one that will affect all of us. Who
else among us has even tried something on a large scale?  

Go ahead, folks, flame away at me. Waste our time, rather than looking, as I 
said before, for common ground, and like minds.

	mark (the Silverdragon)

/*___________________________________________________________________________*
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 *          	       	markbr@radian                                        *
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Newsgroups: alt.pagan