Saturday, 30 January 2010
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Is The First Amendment for Monotheists Only?
Is The First Amendment for Monotheists Only?
A case coming before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could end up having major legal ramifications for all religious minorities in the United States. Wiccan chaplain Patrick McCollum has been fighting for years to overturn the State of California’s “five faiths policy”, which limits the hiring of paid chaplains to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American adherents. While McCollum has suffered setbacks in his quest, with a California federal district court ruling in early 2009 that he had no standing to bring his suit, he recently gained support on appeal from several civil and religious rights groups who argue that his case should be heard.
“McCollum’s central claim strikes at the heart of the rights and freedoms that the Establishment Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and Title VII were designed to guarantee. A state policy that classifies on the basis of religion (or any other protected ground) epitomizes disparate treatment that is properly subject to challenge by a member of the excluded group.” – From an Amicus Brief submitted by Americans United For Separation of Church and State, The Anti-Defamation League, The American Jewish Committee, The Interfaith Alliance, and The Hindu American Foundation
While decisions made so far have focused only on whether McCollum has standing as a taxpayer or non-inmate to bring his suit, a new Amicus Curiae filed by the National Legal Foundation, on behalf of a conservative activist organization called WallBuilders, argues that McCollum has no standing because modern Pagans aren’t guaranteed the same Constitutional rights and protections as Christian or monotheist citizens.
“The true historic meaning of “religion” excludes paganism and witchcraft, and thus, does not compel a conclusion that McCollum has state taxpayer standing … paganism and witchcraft were never intended to receive the protections of the Religion Clauses. Thus, in the present case there can be no violation of those clauses … Should this Court conclude that McCollum has taxpayer standing … this Court should at least acknowledge that its conclusion is compelled by Supreme Court precedent, not by history or the intent of the Framers.”
These statements, while certainly not representative of modern-day understandings of the Religion Clauses, have been seemingly welcomed by the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as the amicus gives no indication that they are missing consent from the defense.
“Wallbuilders files this Brief pursuant to consent from Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellants and pursuant to the accompanying Motion For Leave to File a Brief Amicus Curiae.”
Indeed, instead of rejecting such a blatantly discriminatory amicus, according to McCollum, in a statement sent to The Wild Hunt, lawyers for the CDCR have argued from the beginning of this long legal saga that there are two “tiers” of religion in America.
“I originally sued on behalf of myself and Pagan inmates as their chaplain, but about a year later several inmates joined the lawsuit. Together, we claimed that it is unconstitutional for the state to deny the Pagan inmates their religious rights, their religious materials, and their religious services.
During the course of the case, the CDCR, other related defendants, and the Assistant Attorneys General who represents them have argued before the court that Pagans are not deserving of equal civil rights as are provided adherents of the preferred faiths. In one of their first arguments to the court, the defendants said that certain “traditional” faiths are first tier faiths and that those faiths were meant to have equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution, but that all of the other faiths were second tier faiths, and were not meant to have the same equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution as the first tier faiths.”
The bold claim in the WallBuilders’ amicus that modern Pagans have no Constitutional claim to protection under the Religion Clauses is the plain-speaking truth behind the more nuanced claims of faith “tiers” or “traditional” faiths made by the CDCR’s legal counsel. The brief reveals, in the words of McCollum, the “real culprits” behind this long struggle.
“I was told by a wise person early on in my legal battle with the CDCR and the other defendants that in every civil rights case the true nature of those opposing the civil rights of the injured parties would eventually rear their ugly heads, and that it would then become crystal clear who was actually calling the shots on their side and what their objective was. Yesterday with the filing of this most recent brief, I think I can safely say that the real culprits have clearly shown themselves in full form — and that their goal is to tear down the religious freedoms of all faiths, except a privileged few, to create a theocracy of privilege similar to the one that spurred the discriminations and abuses on account of religion, which prompted the American founders to form a new nation with liberty and justice for all–a new nation free from such coercion.
If the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should decide that this line of argument has any validity, it could send a shock-wave through the legal community, casting doubt on any number of legal cases that now ensure the equal protection of religious minorities. This case, fought for so long, and simply to keep a Wiccan from possibly getting a paid chaplaincy position, has already created a “two-tier” religious system for incarcerated Pagans in California. Guaranteeing that some faiths are more equal than others.
In the face of these recent developments, McCollum calls for modern Pagans and their allies to speak up against this injustice.
I think it is now time for our community, and also for people of good will in other faiths and religious communities of conscience to respond to this outrageous position in support of continued discrimination by a governmental agency. The safety and security of every minority faith community in the country is in danger when arguments like these are thought to be credible by anyone.
We all need to write to Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mathew L. Cate, the Secretary of the CDCR and let them all know our outrage. And if you are a Pagan or Heathen, then we must also demand equal treatment, equal accommodations, equal access to our religious items for institutionalized persons, including prison inmates, and equal access to paid Pagan chaplains.”
It seems increasingly clear that arguments in this case over “taxpayer standing” has been something of a red herring, obfuscating the true history of this legal odyssey by McCollum and the Pagan inmates he is fighting for. This is about civil rights and our religious freedoms, not just a chaplaincy job in a prison. One can only echo McCollum’s sentiments, that the time to speak out is now. The time to stand behind and support McCollum is now.
You can be sure that I will continue to follow and report on this case, and that I will make more information and documents regarding this appeals process available as I have them.
Relevant Documents:
- Statement by Patrick McCollum
- Amicus Curiae by The National Legal Foundation on behalf of WallBuilders
- Amicus Curiae by Americans United For Separation of Church and State, on behalf of Americans United, The Anti-Defamation League, The American Jewish Committee, The Interfaith Alliance, and The Hindu American Foundation
- Amicus Curiae by the Florida Justice Institute and the Legal Aid Society of New York
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
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The Smoking Jacket
When I picked up my youngest daughter from daycare yesterday, I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke in the front room. Thinking maybe my daycare provider had just been standing too close to the open door when she had her smoke break, I didn't worry too much about it until I bent down to help my daughter with the zipper on her winter jacket, which had gotten stuck. I almost reeled back at the stink that hit me from her jacket, and even worse, from her hair. More cigarette smoke. What the hell? Since I had errands to run and an evening class to get to, I decided to wait until today to talk to my daycare provider about it and find out what was going on.
I asked her about it this morning, and she lied straight to my face about it, saying she never smoked in the house, suggesting maybe the smell was because the parents of some of the other kids smoked and the stink got on their jackets and then transferred to my girl, or perhaps it was because of the old ceiling tiles which had been there since forever and maybe still smelled a little like smoke from years ago when they did smoke in the house, or maybe it was just because she'd spent the weekend washing down all the shelves and cabinets in the daycare and had disturbed some smoke-stinky dust. Or maybe, maybe, it was residue from the winterized plastic-covered windows. What the HELL?!?
I went to work, angry and confused and worried, and pretty much gave myself a migraine over the whole situation. I even texted one of the other parents to ask if they'd ever noticed cigarette smoke stink on their kids when they'd picked them up. Sadly, that parent is a smoker as well, and while she swears she never smokes around her kids, she admits she can't smell it on her kids. She suggested that it might, indeed, be a transfer from her own kids' jackets.
Hoping that this was the case, I picked up my daughter this afternoon. No stinky-smoke smell in the room. I sniffed all the jackets (feeling like a complete ass the whole time) and smelled - Febreeze! Even the smoker-parent's kids' jackets smelled Mountain Fresh. My daughter was wound up (she'd had preschool today, and so, no nap) and my patience was short, and getting shorter by the second, especially when I smelled Febreeze on my daughter's jacket, and smoke in her hair. We left with a very terse goodbye, and I've been literally steaming about the whole situation all night. I even questioned both my daughters, and both have confirmed that she smokes around them sometimes. While I might be dubious of what my 4 year old claims, my 11 year old is very honest.
What I don't understand and what pisses me off the very most is that my daycare provider would lie to me about this in the first place, and then go to such lengths to cover her ass. She's been my daycare for four years, has been absolutely terrific, both of my kids love her to death. I've never had a problem with her before, have in fact recommended her to several families. I don't want to change daycares, especially since my kid has such a close bond to her, but now I feel like I can't trust her, and because the world is what it is and humans are what they are, I really worry about my baby's safety.
How would you handle this situation?
Monday, 11 January 2010
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Pagan Kids N Kin Meeting - Sunday 1/17/2010 2PM @ Sacred Path Center
Come play with us as we craft our very own
Wish Boxes
We all have wishes, dreams, and goals, some easier to attain than others. A common American tradition around this time of year is to create a New Year Resolution, another type of wish or goal to focus on for the coming year.Join us as we explore and enjoy this wondrous and magickal turn of the wheel, 2:00 PM at the Sacred Paths Center, through crafting, ritual, myth and song!
When
Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 2:00 PM
Where
Sacred Paths Center777 Raymond Ave.
Saint Paul, MN 55114
Who should come
pagan / earth-based families
Why
Our meetings will only get better and better as time passes! Don't miss out on the fun!
What is Pagan Kids N Kin?
Kids 'n Kin is an Earth-centered program for children and their families. You need not be a member of any group or religion to participate. Because community building requires regular contact, we're offering our program every other Sunday through June.
Suggested Donation
So that no one need be turned away due to lack of funds for rental space and crafting supplies, we ask that families make donations to support our program. Our costs run about $3-5 per child per session.
Please RSVP to:
kidsnkin@dragondreaming.com if you will be joining us. Be sure to include first names and ages of children so we can be sure to have enough age-appropriate materials on-hand. RSVP's are received until 9:00 AM on the day of our meeting. If you find you can come unexpectedly, please do so ... we'll stretch
the materials to make do! (RSVP's really help, though!)
You can also RSVP through our group on FaceBook.com:
http://www.facebook .com/groups. php?ref=sb# /group.php? gid=169440451835
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Snacks:
If you would like to bring a (usually) healthy snack for the KNK crowd, please e-mail us at kidsnkin@dragondreaming.com. We'd like to have different parents taking turns, with 2 bringing something each time. Our parents have gotten very creative with snacks fitting our themes and it's been quite fun!
Note about healthy snacks: some of us believe that chocolate is proof that the Goddess loves us, and wants us to be happy. Others believe chocolate is a vegetable, since it comes from a bean -- although the argument has been made that chocolate is a fruit ... in any case, as long as there are no allergies, and you are happy to partake of chocolate with your child, then we accept chocolate items as snacks. This informal policy could change at any time...
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.· ´¨¨)) -:¦:- *
*¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) *
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·*´
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eGroups:
pagankidsnkin
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pagankidsnkin/ - Kids N Kin moderated announcement list. You may sign up at the site.
KNKPlan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KNKPlan/ - Planning & Development team list. If you'd like to take part, ask one of the leaders at a Pagan Kids N Kin meeting!
Other Groups:
Pagan Kids N Kin Home Page:
http://kidsnkin.dragondreaming.com - Where you'll find our upcoming schedule and a growing children's Book of Workings that has been developed at Pagan Kids N Kin sessions.
FaceBook Page
http://www.facebook .com/home. php?ref=home# /PaganKidsNKin? ref=profile
FaceBook Group
http://www.facebook .com/groups. php?ref=sb# /group.php? gid=169440451835CafeMom.com
http://www.cafemom.com/group/pagankidsnkin - Forum & message board for KNK family & friends
Sunday, 25 October 2009
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Call for help from fellow Pagans
To all the Pagan Community:
We are a Pagan congregation that is encountering entrenched discrimination
in upstate New York and currently in court fighting for our rights as a
minority religion. The Maetreum of Cybele is a Goddess-centred,
reconstructionist religion. Although we are not Wiccan, many of us come from
Wiccan backgrounds and still practice as such. We have been noted in Margot
Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon, Pat Telesco's "Which Witch is Which" and
Raven Kaldera's "Hermaphrodeities" . Our founder has been active in the Pagan
Community since the 60's.We own real property and run a brick-and-mortar establishment in the Town of
Catskill in Greene County, New York. Our property consists of a historic
former Catskill Inn called Central House and approximately 3+ acres of land
with an outdoor Temple/Grove in the hamlet of Palenville. We purchased the
property 2002 and turned it into a Pagan Temple and Convent. A Pagan Convent
you ask? No, it's not a contradiction in terms. What we do is provide both
temporary and permanent housing for Pagan priestess who wish to dedicate
themselves more fully to serving their community as well as for purposes of
spiritual retreat, safety and growth.Not long after we purchased the property a local slumlord addressed a town
meeting calling for us to be run out of town by way of zoning and building
inspection harassment. While most of the people in town rejected his call
and welcomed us, nevertheless over the course of the next several years we
weathered continued harassment, vandalism, threats to "burn us out" followed
by harassing and illegal inspections.We incorporated in 2005, put the property in the name of the
religious corporation and applied for property tax exemption which was
granted in 2006. The following year the renewal of the exemption was
denied without given reason ironically enough within weeks of our Federal
501 (C)3 status being approved. The Town of Catskill has continued to
deny our exemption to this day in open violation of New York tax law
which mandates the property tax exemption for religious and
charitable organizations.Today our situation is that we are considered behind on these illegal taxes
and thus in potential danger of having our property taken away which is
probably the motive here. Our case is currently in court however we were
forced at the last minute to go "pro se" (represent ourselves) because the
attorney we were working with would not represent us in court. Under New
York law we must have a lawyer represent us because we are incorporated and
we have been ordered by the court to hire a lawyer. We were actually ordered
to use all our connections and networking so this letter is actually by
court order - believe it or not.We have also contacted the Department of Justice. Because, after three years
of refusing to give a reason for the denial, we were told this year it was
because of a zoning violation which is actually prohibited by Federal law
under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. We
are hoping, as provided by the law, that the DOJ will pursue criminal
charges.What we need from the Pagan Community is this:
We need a lawyer, NOW! We've been turned away by over 30 lawyers at this
point even though we feel we have an ironclad case with a Judge predisposed
in our favour. We've done all the heavy lifting already, researched relevant
law and prepared all the arguments.If you or someone you has had a similar problem with the Town of Catkill,
New York, we would very much like to hear from you.We need you to help spread the word about this. Please forward this letter
widely. This issue is one that potentially effects all minority religions,
especially Pagans.We would like you to come and visit if you are in the area. We open
our property to all compatible Pagan groups for rituals and other events
as well.We can always use monetary help. We are a poor order and maintain
our property and do our charitable outreach on a shoestring budget that
is being pushed to the limit fighting this battle. You can paypal a donation
from the button at gallae.comWe are also requesting that you send us some positive energy, even if you
can do nothing else. We really need it to prevail, we need all we can get
right now.You can learn more about us at our websites at http://gallae. com ,
http://centralhouse .gallae.com and updates are at
http://gallaecentra lhouse.blogspot. com To contact us email firstchurch@ ...We feel we have much to offer the Pagan community and suspect that our case
can potentially have far-reaching effects for Pagans as a whole, especially
those who hope to one day own real property and operate their own temples,
monasteries and convents. We ask that you please help us in whatever way you
can. Thank you for your time and attention.Mother's Blessings,
Rev. Cathryn Platine, First Battakes
Rev. Viktoria Whittaker, Battakes-in- Waiting
-- Cathryn Platine
@)-'--.--'
"He who can lead you to believe an absurdity, can lead you to commit
an atrocity."
—Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)http://gallae. com
copyright 2009, Cathryn Platine - all rights reserved.
Friday, 02 October 2009
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A Reversal of Copyright Law
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part II
9.29.09
A Reversal of Copyright Law
Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.
Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work - or to "protect" their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.
The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:
a.) that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right,
b.) that it's your legal obligation to make your work available, and
c.) that if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.
If you're an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you'd therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).
Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history - a claim that's no doubt true - but therefore they say, as Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, "the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual greivances [sic] of rightsholders."
Yet it's in this very argument that the danger lies.
Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they'll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.
Orphan Works: "Half a Loaf"
An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill's advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead.
Calling the Orphan Works bill just "half a loaf," he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:"These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale."
Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their "legitimate rights." But he reaffirmed the Copy Left's fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they've registered their works:"At some point, some kind of grand grandfathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them." (Italics added)
Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:"Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora's box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what." (Italics added)
This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:"[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life's work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata - and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information." - Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8, 2008
The War on Authors
Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Postmodern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public "commons."
This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative "content." By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.
Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments
The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we'll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership______________________________________________________________
For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog
Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.
If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
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JadedKitteh
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- Name: JadedKitteh
- Gender: Female
- Member Since: 8/17/2009
