From: bwilson@eng.AUburn.EDU (Brian Scott Wilson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Moderation (was Pentagrams)
Date: 27 Jul 92 18:58:44 GMT
Organization: The Internet

In article NsXHoB3w164w@ailanth.UUCP, ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy) writes:
>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)

> 
>*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 drink
and all that. He also has a truck with a BORN AGAIN PAGAN bumper sticker.  There 
is also an SCA sticker inm the window. When at work one day I had a fellow worker
ask me if I was a pagan (he knew that I was in the SCA). He didn't say much else
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. I explained that even though I am a Christian I did not care to go 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.

My family has no problem with what I do they are well educated and have known my 
interests since I was a little boy. My father also is an accountant and owns his 
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 family.
Face it, if comes down to a choice between them and you (as Aengus says) "sorry 
Babe, your outa here".

> 
>sounds like your university was a bunch of cowards to me...  or just a 
>bunch of clueless fucks.  mpost people who woudl join the SCA already 
>knwo enough about it to know that it isn't a satanist ortganization.  and 
>you don't even know what it was she was into.  someoen said "black 
>magick" and it stuck...
>
Yes I knew it wasn't a satanist organization. And I worked to bring the group
back from the brink. But the point is that had I not known what the SCA was,
I would probably have not joined when I heard that it was a group  of 
witches. No matter how much I was into the middle ages and fighting.

> 
>and making the nice normal PAGAN members of the society invisible will 
>sell us to the mundanes.  lovely.

 
First of all you can't sell the SCA to mundanes, those who want to do what
we do are not the least mundane. As far as it goes I would like to keep the
SCA in good graces with the rest of the world in order that it continue to 
exist.
 
> 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 job
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.


Sir Brian Mac Brand
Knight of Meridies