From: schuldy@progress.COM (Mark Schuldenfrei)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pentacles
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:57:51 GMT
Organization: Progress Software Corp.

Peter, you overreact.  (And, what is your SCA name, my Lord?)

Here is what you *may* do within the context of the SCA:

  Express your religious preference, with less worry than you might
  have elsewhere in your daily life.

  Practice your religious affiliation, as long as such practice
  does not become part of the official event.

  Decorate your person, possesions, tentage, friends, children and
  pets with the religious icons of your choice.

  Speak of your religion without let or hindrance. (Within the
  reasonable bounds of Social Etiquette).

  Hold any office in the SCA, formal or informal, without let or
  hindrance because of your religious affiliation.

  Partake in SCA activities, such as cooking, fighting, singing
  and so forth, as any other member might.

And so forth.

What you may not do, (and it's about the only thing I can think
of that you may not do) is register armory with a pentacle on it
within the College of Arms.

Not a big restriction, is it?  Not exactly a limitation on your
personal freedom, is it?  There is one, unimportant thing, you
cannot do.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Now, why does the corporation have this restriction? For reasons you
might even agree with.  Certain symbols, displayed where we live
and operate, garner all SCA members in the area a large, stupid,
nasty, prejudiced response.  While you (and I) revile this unthinking
stupidity on the part of portions of the world, it does exist.
Tolerance is rare, and violence and prejudice are not.  I don't like
it, and neither do you, but * IT * IS * THERE *.

Now, you may ask that the SCA, and it's members, fight this intolerance
with you and for you.  But, it is not the role of the SCA to fight
religious wars with Society.  We want to opt out of fighting with
Society.  It's hard enough to be accepted for what we do, let alone
fighting a battle that isn't ours.

In short, the world isn't fair, nor is the SCA prepared to make the
entire world a fair place.  Within the SCA, we have made the world
a much fairer place.  One of the edges between the inside, and the
outside, is symbolism formally registered by the Corporation. The
Board has chosen to regulate our formal registration process, in
recognition of established prejudice, and in order to continue our
functioning unmolested.

It is not the purpose, will, or destiny of the SCA to fight religious
wars outside of our own group.  It isn't our job.  There are lots of
good fights, worthy fights, that the SCA shouldn't do.  And, I dare
say, tolerance within the SCA is not the problem.

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And, to argue in an SCA internal context, the armory we register, and
the persona's that we create, are an attempt to recreate fictional people
that could have existed in period.  Little proof has been offered,
by anyone, that the Paganism you practice mundanely is a medieval
artifact.  And there is no proof that, in period, your mundane religion's
symbol would have been registered in armory, in those times and places
that religious icons would have been registered in armory.  The use
of pentacles as decorative motif's, and as Judaic Kabbalistic symbols
is well proven, but not in armory.

Arguments of the form "but I *want* it" have worked in the past, but
not often.  Arguments of the form "But *they* have *theirs*" work
less well.  We do recreate the middle ages, after all, we are not
a Tolkein Society.

(Bertramesque Tangent): I had read a few years ago in the paper, that
the last of the Tolkein Society's had failed and closed.  Is this true?

	Tibor
--
Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy@progress.com)