First Livingston Parish pagan festival event goes off without a hitch…

…in spite of stupid, inflammatory commentary by local Sheriff’s Office.

Back story for those who don’t know about these proceedings. Livingston Parish is a town in Louisiana through with a particular brand of religious bigotry flows that promulgated a religious ban on fortune telling (the law was taken to court and the town lost.) Now, a group of pagans wanted to run a festival near the city to celebrate their culture and religion and before it happened the Sheriff’s Office felt like making an unprofessional statement weighing in on the celebration:

“A scheduled pagan festival is under the scrutiny of the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office. “Obviously, we don’t like this type of activity, but if they are following all of the laws to the letter of the law, then we can’t do anything about it,” Perry Rushing, chief of operations for the Sheriff’s Office, said Thursday. “We vehemently oppose this type of activity in Livingston Parish.” The pagan festival is scheduled to be held the last four days in May at Gryphon’s Nest Campground Inc. at 19306 Bull Run Road in southeastern Livingston Parish.”

Such terrible depths that law enforcement has fallen when they make statements like this that basically read like tacit permission to groups to go out and hinder, damage, or injure the festival. After making a public statement like this the the Sheriff’s Office would have had a hard time showing that they didn’t fail to do their jobs properly if anyone decides to do so. Perhaps they should stick to their duties—dispensation of the law—in the future and stay out of religious relations.

Well, this statement came along other statements from various religious groups that they would proceed to protest the festival. Including language such as “educating” the visiting pagans about how Christianity feels about them. All well-and-good to me, they’re welcome to bring their education and signs and the visiting pagans are also welcome to show them hospitality and otherwise totally ignore them.

The protestors plan to appear at the end-of-month festival, so still more could unfold from this event; but insofar they’re not organized enough to care about the first, albeit smaller, event.

I enjoy both protests and festivals. I thoroughly enjoy the activism and the interest generated by them; but I am not encouraged by the statement and behavior of their Sheriff’s Office. We’ll keep our eye on them, and hopefully this is simply a gaff and not an outward indication of bad intent on their part.

Link, via The Wild Hunt blog.

Have a merry pagan Christmas, and a sprightly Yule too

With the advent of the Christmas season reigning strong in the hearts and minds of the American public, it’s a good time to come out and revisit the strange scintilla of spirit that actually rests over these holidays. The retail industry tried to start as early as they could, barely letting Hallowse’en slide out the back door before they started putting out the Christmas decorations and ornaments—we had a really interesting Thanksgiving with turkey’s sitting side-by-side with the egg nog and snow angels.

The supposed War on Christmas touted blindly from the television is blathering on; but really the secularization of Christmas happened way back during Dickens era and now it’s been bled dry by Wal-Mart and Hallmark to the point where it has few of the original allusions to what people think it should—but never really had in the first place.

Except for people who celebrate Saturnalia, maybe.

The so-called atheist movement has gotten strange bolstering from bus advertising, and even a poster set next to a Christmas tree (excuse me Holiday tree) in the capital city of Washington Olympia. Only to have their sign stolen—then returned. TV pundits like Bill O’Rilley then brought out their vituperative voices to screed the governor of the state for following the law. Perhaps people need to re-read the 1^st Amendment that we all cherish so much.

As for everything else Christmas, I will leave everyone to settle into their Yule spirit and quote—and link to—my favorite Pagan blog on all subjects religiosity and mythology.

The Wild Hunt.

December brings many things: snow, cold weather, people acting horribly at shopping centers, and journalists seeking a new angle on holiday reporting. A favorite in recent years is to talk of the "pagan" origins of the Christmas holiday. These often come in the form of editorials rebutting the inane "War on Christmas" prattlings by Bill O'Reilly and his ilk. For example, Pete Langr of the Budgeteer News has this to say.

"It’s ironic that the effort to put Christ back in Christmas is both so profitable and so willing to focus on the Christmas tree and on the word “merry.” The Christmas tree itself “has nothing to do with other religious holidays celebrated in December” says my letter writer. Except that the Christmas tree was apparently co-opted by Christians from a pagan celebration in which evergreen boughs were hung in the home. In effect, the pagans lost an earlier culture war. Perhaps they bartered buttons saying 'take back our winter solstice celebration.'"

And so on, and so forth. Some reporters have even tried to debunk the "Christmas traditions aren't really Christian" debunkers.

"Despite popular belief, the idea of Christmas trees did not come from Pagan rituals. In fact, the first Christmas trees are believed to have originated in 17th century Germany. It took two centuries for the idea to catch on in the U.S."

Too bad the Bible somewhat refutes that notion.

Preparing For the “Pagan Christmas” Rush, link via The Wild Hunt.