From: ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Moderation (was Pentagrams)
Date: 29 Jul 92 04:29:42 GMT
Organization: Ailanthus Project

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

> 
> 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.

after some thought, and talking with my housemate about this post, it 
poccurred to me (because he suggested it) that discrimination on basius 
of religion, or even the lack of it, is unconstitutional.  if you think 
you have been unfaiurly fired, there are legal channels.  woudl you sit 
back and take it if someone had fireed you because they thought you were 
jewish?

> 
> 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".

this is what made me have to come back and answer again.  WHERE is it you 
live, anyway?  Pplease tell me, so i never move there by accident.  it 
sounds like one sick, sick community.  the town i live in is ratehr small 
as towns go, but the general public neitehr knows nor cares what the 
adult married son of their CPA does with his time, and they certainbly 
wouldn't not go to one because he (the son, that is) was considered by 
thise who knew him to be some sort of ne'er do well...

i didn't realize that i was still capable of being shocked.  is this what 
baptists are like?  i went to a baptist church for sunday school as a kid 
and never guessed.  i thought the hateful types were in the minority, and 
that most woudl react to findingh out that a churchmember's child had 
gone astray with compassion, not hatred for the parent.  goddess...  do 
peopel really act this way?????  i cxan understand refusing to do 
business with a pagan CPA if your religion says not, but refusing to do 
business with the parent of a pagan?  and i thought maine is 
conservative...  i'm not being facetious here, i am truly amazed.  that 
some wierdos could act that way doesn't surprise me, but that enough 
could do so, to someone who is completely innocent, is beyond me...

> 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.
> 
and it doesn't occur to you that the haters are in the wrong, not those 
who are hated?  seems you are just contuning it, only worse, by hating us 
for being hated.  i thought chivalry was looking out for the downtrodden, 
or something related to it.  so i throw it back to you: this is a society 
based on chivalry.  blaming me for being oppressed by society is NOT 
chivalric.  hating me because some people hate you for knowing me is 
illogical as well.  shoudln't your resentment be directed toward those 
who discrimited against you?  the only power i have in this interchange 
is that of refusing to be silenced.  i did not fire you from your job, i 
did not make people avoid your father.  others did that, and THEY, not i, 
are responsible for those actions.

please think about this.

                                         -ailsa
                                          who is amazed to find that she 
                                          can still be shocked...

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