From: peterh@netcom.com (Peter John Harrison)
Subject: Re: Pentacles (was Re: consort gender)
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 17:24:52 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 


>Greetings from Arval!  I had written:

>> 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.

>Raedwynn asked for some clarification:

>> I would like you to clarify just why you think the public associates
>> "mass murder" with pentagrams? Weird things, bizarre cults, but I have
>> never seen a pentacle get the kind of negative reaction one has to a
>> swastika.

>The Mason murders is one excellent example; there are others.  For example,
>a few years ago the media was swamped with reports of a "Satanist cult"
>operating across the US-Mexican border, kidnapping young men and women and
>slaughtering them.  The pentacle figured heavily in their symbolism.  In

Come, now.  Please don't tell me you think there is _any_ religious symbol
not associated with mass murder.  The Crusades, in our own period, come to 
mind.  As does the bloodshed in Leabanon (with three of the major world 
religions slugging it out).   

>much of this country, the pentacle is seen as _the_ symbol of Satan and
>evil.  In the media, it is uniformly associated with Satanism, and the
>bloodiest sicko Satanist are always the ones used to illustrate the dangers
>of Satanist cults.  I am well aware that the pentacle has other, peaceful
>meanings, but the one most prevalent in the common imagery of modern
>America is decidedly bloody.

And in many countries, the Christian Cross, Jewish Star, etc. are associated
with great evil.  Iran spent many years demonizing the U.S.A. as the "Great
Satan."  

>> The society is not interested in whether or not it might give it's
>> "sanction" to these symbols by allowing them to be displayed; it states
>> quite clearly in the section of the Corpora on religious  freedom /
>> tolerance that symbols may not be displayed which might be termed
>> coercive, intolerant, etc. by anyone else. 

>I'm afraid you've mis-remembered Corpora.  Corpora talks about religious
>ceremonies & discrimination of the grounds of religion, but has nothing to
>say about religious symbols.

>The following passage is quoted from the Board's ruling on the use of
>pentacles in SCA armory; if you like I will send you the entire ruling.  As
>you see, the ruling has nothing to do with religion or religious symbols;
>it has everything to do with whether or not the SCA, Inc. chooses to
>sanction the display of the pentacle, and the possibility of damage to the
>Society's reputation.

>  The Board has a duty of care for the whole organization.  We heard from a
>  number of people who have had problems in the communities because of
>  perceptions of the SCA as not merely tolerating, but actively
>  encouraging, various anti-social activities.  Again, the rightness or
>  wrongness of their perceptions is not at issue; those perceptions are
>  simply part of the larger environment within which the SCA must operate.
>  We can reasonably expect that the SCA will come up against similar
>  perceptions in the future, and we cannot reasonably expect outsiders to
>  understand the subtleties of authority underlying 'registration,' which
>  to them will inevitably imply official recognition, approval, and
>  sanction. (quoted from the cover letter to the 4/91 Laurel Letter of
>  Acceptances and Returns, which in turn quotes from a letter from the
>  Board of Directors)

It all comes down to a word you used earlier: tolerance.  The U.S.A., and
(I thought) the S.C.A. were both built on a framework of tolerance for 
individual expressions of political and personal belief.  The Bill of  
Rights recognizes that there are people in the world who would take those
rights away, all in the name of "the 'accepted' norm" for social behavior.

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."  The
S.C.A. should either allow the incorporation of any religious icon or none:
there is no middle ground, you either allow all expressions of religious 
faith, or admit to a predjudice toward the membership's religious 
affiliations.
============================================================================
Peter John Harrison
peterh@netcom.com
>===========================================================================
>Arval Benicoeur                                       mittle@watson.ibm.com
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca