The Burning Times Continue

The highly publicized torture killing of an accused witch in Papua New Guinea is a brutal reminder that they still burn "witches" in some parts of the world.

A young mother was burned alive in Papua New Guinea this week after townspeople accused her of being a witch.

According to multiple reports, Kepari Leniata, 20, was tortured and killed in front of a mob of hundreds in the town of Mount Hagen. The woman, stripped naked and covered in gasoline, was burned alive on a pile of trash by relatives of a young boy who had died earlier in the week. The relatives had accused Leniata of killing him with sorcery.

If anything, it's a growing trend. Deep-seated cultural beliefs result in numerous murders, despite their illegality.

PNG's sorcery act dates back to before 1975, when the nation was a colony of Australia.

The law acknowledges the widespread belief in sorcery and tries to regulate it; however, the courts have increasingly backed away from sorcery cases.

But this incident threatens to inspire serious legal action, drawing passionate condemnation from the prime minister and international pressure to prosecute Leniata's killers.

"No one commits such a despicable act in the society that all of us, including Kepari, belong to," Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said in a statement.

"Barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery. Violence against women because of this belief that sorcery kills. These are becoming all too common in certain parts of the country.

The dynamics appear to be startlingly similar to the burning times of ancient Europe. Women are the primary targets and in many cases it is to wrest property from them.

The UN's special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, in March last year gave a blistering assessment of the treatment of women in PNG, finding two-thirds of females in relationships have experienced domestic violence.

Ms Manjoo said sorcery allegations were usually used as a way of depriving women of land and property, while misfortune or death were used as a reason for the accusation.

But much as I discussed here, at some length, among the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea, a belief in sorcery distinguishes between "good and bad magic."

This is where it becomes complicated. People in the West, like Rob Kerby, conflate ancient tribal beliefs in sorcery that they don't understand at all with Wicca, Paganism, and Western Alchemy. The drift of ancient tribal beliefs enshrined in the Bible, become a bludgeon in the hands of ignorant, bigoted Westerners. Worse, they further fuel torches and outrage for Christian converts in the third world. And the Rob Kerbys of the world marvel at the moral clarity of the third worlders who are taking their witch problem seriously.

Jason at the Wild Hunt also has some thoughts on how our other nearly religious obsession, Hollywood, may be cross-pollinating with myths about witchcraft and exacerbating the problem.

We live in a strange time. In America we concoct fantasies about killing “witches,” we build thrillers that suppose our own witch-killings were justified, while thousands are killed by mobs in towns and villages across the world.  Surely we should be feeling some cognitive dissonance, but we seem to accept “The Witch” as just like any other fantasy creature: zombies, werewolves, vampires, winged fairies. We make no real connection to how much our fantasy is built on the horror of killing innocents (and the propaganda that fueled it). Nor do we realize that Hollywood is a global business, and that our fantasies about witch-killing might be seen very differently in lands where witch-hunts have not become a relic of history. For modern Pagans and Witches living in countries where these witch persecutions happen, they are in a constant struggle to change a culture of misinformation and dangerous propaganda (South African Pagans are currently circulating a petition to their Human Rights Commission).

Yesterday I wrote about a large number of film projects featuring witches and witchcraft that are being released this year, and that those of us who identify as Witches should start discerning our response to them, because what pop-culture does impacts our collective thinking and beliefs. This is not because these films are about “us,” but because the lines are far blurrier than we realize. That it’s problematic that we are entertained by fake witches being killed while Christian groups in America fund witch-hunters overseas. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous have no problem issuing polemics that deliberately try to blur the lines further between modern religious Witchcraft and the witch-persecutions. We seem to forget that we are not immune to moral panics here too.

It's a good post in a long line of good posts on the issue and it's filled with linky goodness. But let me just emphasize the action step: Sign the petition.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Episcopalians Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

The other day I posted the exciting news that the Episcopal Church has green-lighted the ordination of transgendered people and taken a step toward gay marriages. This news was less well received by Rob Kerby who quickly pronounced the Church dead... and then he proceeded to dance on its grave. The insufferable post can be found here. The church founded by that wife-killer Henry VIII is on the brink of financial ruin because it's driven all the real Christians away with its liberal agenda... blah, blah, blah... Whatever. Talk to the hand.

True to form Kerby has also been busily blocking and deleting any dissent. Yes, it's not only Pagans and the gay-positive who get chucked down the memory hole on the new Beliefnet. Episcopalian? Gone.

I posted a comment and learned, for sure, that I'm being blocked. My comment was sent straight into moderation. It was deleted without ever seeing the light of day. As you can see, there were only two comments showing, but four comments in the counter, so I'm clearly not the only one who's been marked for moderation.

Click to Enlarge

Someone named Mike slipped under their radar and got a not terribly favorable comment up.

Click to Enlarge

It was later deleted.

Click to Enlarge

So, some comments have come and gone. As of this writing there are four comments showing out of nine. The other five are presumably languishing in moderation.

Click to Enlarge

A particularly special comment from one Robbins Mitchell refers to the Church's first gay archbishop as Archfaggot Gene Robinson. So, that's nice. I doubt it will be deleted. I've seen worse anti-gay slurs left in place as the mildest of questions about the news section's direction are deleted. Hatin' on gay people is perfectly cool on the new Beliefnet. Because, you know, they're Christians and we'll know them by their love.

You know, I really have no problem with moderators deleting rude, offensive comments. And, in principle, I have no problem with Kerby hating gay people in the name of Christ. He has the right to cherry-pick the Bible and juggle contradictions the size of watermelons. The problem, as I've said before, is that he is representing a site that is still pretending to be an ecumenical, interfaith destination. And not only is he spouting bigoted and blinkered nonsense, he's enforcing an environment of group-think. The mildest disagreement is silenced and swept from Beliefnet's page.

Kerby, for his part, is unrepentant, and has been dishing on Episcopalians on his Facebook page. There we learn that he's offended 2.3 million Episcopalians. "Ah, well." And he was called for an interview with Australia's ABC Radio to discuss "the collapsing US Episcopal church." But it didn't go so well.

I learned what little I know about dealing with the broadcast media from the legendary Ed Wheeler of the Oklahoma Natural Gas Co.'s PR department. He said "Give 'em a six-second sound bite, then shut up and refuse to utter another word." Tonight, I stupidly talked with a reporter in Australia for 15 minutes. I was over my head on a subject I know little about. If I came across as an idiot, at least (hopefully) nobody in this hemisphere will hear it!

Yet he knew enough to pronounce the Church "near collapse!" Perhaps he spoke to a reporter who actually knew a little something about the history of the Anglican Church... or history, period... or a little about critical thinking. Any of the above and he'd be sunk.

One of the things I noticed in looking at this particular "news" post is that Beliefnet has added a Facebook commenting feature. I don't know that he can delete those. I say that because my comments in that thread and other somewhat critical ones are there. And the thread makes for some interesting reading. Commenters also noticed that Kerby was in over his head when it came to, um, facts. I, personally, didn't spend a lot of time parsing his drivel but this made me chuckle.

This is no longer George Washington’s Episcopal Church – in 1776 the largest denomination in the rebellious British colonies. Membership has dropped so dramatically that today there are 20 times more Baptists than Episcopalians.

You mean the George Washington who almost never went to church? The one who refused to take communion and left early on those rare occasions when he did go so that his carriage had to make a second trip to pick up his church-going wife? The one who preferred to spend his Sundays drinking wine and smoking cigars? That George Washington? Maybe it would be fairer to say Martha Washington's Episcopal Church?

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Pagan Kerfuffle Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

I was reading this ghastly story this morning about a man who was recently executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.

According to SPA, the Saudi state news agency, Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri, a man "found in possession of books and talismans" was beheaded in the southern province of Najran.

The BBC reported that the execution was carried out after al-Asiri's sentence was upheld by the Middle Eastern monarchy's highest courts, and that "no details were given of what he was found guilty of beyond the charges of witchcraft and sorcery."

Although Amnesty International stated that the country does not consider it a capital offense, executions on charges of sorcery and witchcraft have occurred in Saudi Arabia in recent years. 

Books and talismans... sigh...

So, I was trying to remember what exactly Rob Kerby had said about Saudi Arabia's proactive response to the witch and djinn (genie) problem. I seem to remember he was fairly laudatory. But when I clicked on the link to the original post, I found that it was gone. I ran some searches on the site. I can't find it. I seem to remember that the response to that piece by Beliefnet's Pagan blogger Gus DiZerega linked to a different version of the same story on that site, so I clicked the link to DiZerega's post. Also gone.

I guess disposing of comments was not enough. Beliefnet has flushed the entire episode and still seems to be trying to profit from its pre-existing brand as a religiously tolerant site. Gus DiZerega has not posted anything since, however, so I'm assuming he and the Pagan community never got that requested apology.

They could not, however, remove all traces of Kerby's diatribe. An extant version can still be found on The Blaze, so I was able to refresh my memory.

In September, Abdul Hamid Bin Hussain Bin Moustafa al-Fakki, a Sudanese national, was beheaded in Medina after being convicted of casting a spell involving jinni designed to reconcile a divorced couple.

“Saudi law does not clearly outlaw sorcery,” reports Cecily Hilleary of Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website, “but the country’s legal system is based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”

According to the Understanding Islam website, belief in magic is integral to the Islamic tradition. Many Saudis say their belief in sorcery and jinni is an integral part of Islam.

Anyone Muslim denies their existence is not a true believer, according to Christoph Wilcke, Senior Researcher for the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

“I recall a meeting with the highest adviser to the Minister of Justice in Saudi Arabia a few years ago,” Wilcke told the Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website. “I asked him, ‘How do you prove sorcery or witchcraft in court?’ And the answer he gave me, after looking a little bit stupefied, was to point to the American justice system – how do Americans know what is pornography?

“He basically said, ‘I know it when I see it.’”

Witchcraft is a profitable business in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Muslim world, he said.

“The poor, the ailing and the heartsick, believing in magic, turn to fortune tellers and herbalists for help,” writes Hilleary.

In the west, witchcraft is trivialized with children’s books such as Harry Potter and Disney movies and TV shows that present it as harmless.

I know it when I see it... and then off with their heads. And this is what Kerby holds up as a model for taking the dangers of Harry Potter seriously. Wow. It's even worse than I'd remembered.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Rob Kerby Holds Forth on Gay Marriage

Buy From Art.com

Why, why, why, do I keep looking at the Beliefnet news feed? It only angries up the blood. Rob Kerby has become such a thorn in my side, I need to set up a tag just to track the lunacy.

That said, this was only a mild irritation. But since I can't leave comments on his news feed posts without being moderated down the memory hole, I'll have to respond from my own, ahem, pulpit.

So. What is this Christianist bigot blathering about today? Gay marriage of course. It is the topic du jour, isn't it. After first, quite rightly, rejecting the loathsome comments of Pastor Worley, he goes on to explain why it is a Christian duty to remain politically engaged in the fight against gay marriage. Says Kerby:

One very simple reason is that marriage is a ceremony most often performed by ministers.

Well, Rob, you just said it yourself. And I don't know how to tell you this but "most often" is not the same as "always." People can be married by various legal authorities such as justices of the peace, judges, and court clerks. State laws vary and it always comes back to the state laws. In fact, in some states, even clergy have to be certified by the state in order to marry people, and all marriages have to be registered by the state. The reason the marriage battle is being fought out at the state level is because marriage is a matter of state law, not religious doctrine. It's just that the states are good enough to recognize religious wedding ceremonies in addition to other marriages.

Kerby goes on:

Marriage was designed to reflect the gospel, the message of good news, which all ministers are entrusted to preach.

See, this is so Rob Kerby. In his myopic world view, marriage was invented by Christians. Note that in the previous statement, he doesn't even acknowledge rabbis, imams, or any other religious leaders as conducting marriage ceremonies --- only ministers. No one can be married unless they're Christian married. Marriage didn't even exist, apparently, until there was Christianity. Not even Jews were married. And I think it goes without saying that he wouldn't consider all those Native American marriages that included same-sex unions.

And on:

The Bible is explicitly clear that God designed human sexuality and marriage and that His idea for marriage is a union solely between one man and one woman as described in Genesis 2.

Except, no. That isn't clear at all. The Biblical view of marriage includes a whole lot of polygamy, not to mention female slavery. So no. But I've already covered this painful reality here, here, and here.

Okay. Just needed to get that of my chest.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Rob Kerby Pagan Bashes on Facebook

Click to Enlarge

I know. I'm like a dog with a bone. But it turns out Rob Kerby leaves his Facebook profile open to the public, so... I skimmed. And if I ever had any doubt that Kerby has nothing but contempt for "witches," it's gone now. Here he is delightedly mocking the upset of the self-described witches who complained to him about his vile post. Screw the Pagan community on Beliefnet, man. Screw Pagans, period. Let 'em burn.

Nothing like Christian kindess, huh?

As to the other commenters in this odious little back and forth, as of this writing, their Facebook pages are also wide open. If they'd closed them to the public, I'd have blacked out their identities. But they haven't so I didn't.

For back-story on Rob Kerby's assault on the dignity and safety of modern Pagans, Wiccans, etc., see here, here, and here.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Pagans Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

So, there was a little dust-up on Beliefnet when Pagans began to notice that the Senior Editor, one Rob Kerby, is a bigot -- something I first realized last fall. In addition to the homophobia, there were hints that he was not at all comfortable with modern Paganism, or other non-Christian faiths for that matter. The latter became very explicit in a recent article which posited the theory that third world witch hunters might know better how to handle the scourge that is Harry Potter. So Pagans took notice. And I noticed, once again, that Rob Kerby has a penchant for disappearing comments he doesn't like.

As previously noted, one of my comments regarding the hypocrisy of Biblically based homophobia  disappeared. A second attempt to comment found me unable to post at all. Now, my IP has changed at least a couple of times since that incident, so I felt inspired to give it another shot when I saw this post on the power of forgiveness. I did so for two reasons. One was to test a system that appears to be losing comments left and right. The other was to satisfy myself that Kerby is aware that he's hurt people and has been called upon to make amends. So under an article subtitled "Time to Forgive," I posted the following comment, with a link to Gus diZuniga's post:

Click to Enlarge

As you can see, it went straight into moderation. Methinks Mr. Kerby is tired of hearing from outraged readers. And he's definitely tired of letting them get a word in edgewise before he's had a chance to silence them.  In less than 24 hours my comment was "moderated" out of existence.

Click to Enlarge

So, Mr. Kerby knows he's insulted people. He knows he's been called upon to apologize. He knows that he would be welcomed to the table to have a mature, interfaith dialogue with members of an ostensibly ecumenical site. He just doesn't care.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Rob Kerby's Pagan Kerfuffle

Click to Enlarge

Oh, the things I learn when I remember to check my stats! I was somewhat heartened to see, this morning, that the Rob Kerby article I referenced here has graduated to a genuine kerfuffle. I have been writing about the Rob Kerby problem for a while now, notably here and here. And despite having been assured by another staffer at Beliefnet that there would be changes, any change seems to have been for the worse.

In the past couple of days, there have been reactions from The Wild Hunt, About.com, Star Foster, and Beliefnet's Pagan blogger Gus diZerega. And yet, for all the brouhaha, you know what I notice? There is still not one single comment on the article in question. As I've already addressed in my previous posts, comments that conflict with Kerby's world view tend to disappear and my IP was apparently blocked so I can't even leave comments anymore. Well, why would I bother when they're just going to be deleted? But either the programming was changed or Kerby's gotten sloppy because the number of comments is still recorded. As of this morning, there were seven invisible comments, as you can see in the graphic above.

Dare I hope that now that Beliefnet's Pagan blogger has addressed this head on, there will finally be changes at Beliefnet? I'm not optimistic, considering that Beliefnet is now owned by BN Media, which has ties to a swath of Christianist organizations. Their other properties are Crossbridge and Affinity 4. This is something I noted with dismay when I first began to notice the shift in tone on my Beliefnet News feed. I see now that The Wild Hunt was on it from the start and saw the writing on the wall when the acquisition was first made.

When you do click to see what groups Affinity4 supports, it’s a who’s who of conservative Christian organizations. Focus on the Family, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Promise Keepers, Concerned Women for America, and Christian Broadcasting Network, to name just a sampling.

And we were all worried that Murdoch would destroy Beliefnet. Clearly he was too busy ignoring (???) all the phone hacking at his hotter media properties.

DiZerega has called on Kerby for an apology and signaled his intent to leave in the absence of one. Whether or not one is forthcoming would give some hint as to the future of that site's editorial direction. But, as I say, I'm not optimistic. My sense for some time has been that the new management at Beliefnet is giving its non-Christian communities the Milton treatment. If you're familiar with Office Space, you'll know that I mean they're letting the problem "just work itself out" while avoiding direct confrontation. So poor diZerega and the Pagan community he represents on Beliefnet's pages may be looking for their red, Swingline stapler for a very long time.

It's not just the Pagan community, either. Kerby is an equal opportunity offender. The only articles he posts about Islamic faiths are scare pieces like this one. The closest thingto respect for Muslims I've seen is his seeming admiration for Saudi Arabian persecution of sorcerers and those who consort with the djinn, in the Pagan-bashing post in question. He's a garden variety bigot, whose standard seems to be, how does this story relate to the truth that is Christianity. He lauds stories of Christian faith through adversity and their struggle against atheists, and, as discussed, expresses unabashed disgust at gay people. He's also turned the news section into a politics beat and a platform for his Christian Right, anti-liberal views.

I will say again that I would be bothered by none of this if Kerby were simply blogging as Kerby on one of the Christian sections of Beliefnet. But he's a Senior Editor, and he's taken over the operation of the News section, which makes him, in many ways, the public face of Beliefnet.

Sadly, I think Beliefnet has finally jumped the shark.

Note: An earlier version of this story left an assurance of change from a Beliefnet staffer anonymous and unsourced, but I found the tweet and linked it above.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

To Suffer a Witch

Put this in the broad category of things I really don't want to write about. But I'm afraid I have to. In a curious synchronicity I noticed the latest drivel from Rob Kerby on my start page. One of these days I will remove the Beliefnet feed, but a combination of morbid curiosity and laziness has prevented it thus far. (For the back story on the Beliefnet news feed's devolution into a reactionary, bigoted, wingnut megaphone for the Christianist Kerby, see here and here.) Kerby's latest bit of wrongheadedness is a diatribe on the dangers of witchcraft. Why is this synchronous? This may be a little hard to follow but bear with me.

Let me start by saying that Kerby's biggest mistake is in conflating certain third world, tribal fears of witchcraft with Pagan faiths. He expresses dismay at Harry Potter for trivializing the dangers of witchery and at the Cornwall schools' inclusion of Paganism in its religion curriculum. This is the first synchronicity. But even more curious is that I was watching this fascinating video last night which had me thinking about a very particular usage of the term "witchcraft." It's a documentary on shaman and "vegetalista" Don Emilio Andrade Gomez who more than once uses the term witchcraft to describe the dark practice of sorcery. A lot of this could be written off to semantic differences but the distinction is too important to leave to the Rob Kerbys of the world... because that kind of thinking gets people killed.

There are several admonitions in the Bible against various supernatural practices. It all gets very confusing because the Bible also extols those same practices in other contexts -- the Book of Daniel, chapter 5 comes to mind but there are other references. The specific use of the word witch which has caused innumerable deaths through the centuries comes from Exodus 22:18 and reads, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," in the King James version.

The word witch is a poor translation from the Hebrew word m'khashepah which is more fairly translated as "poisoner." It stems from ancient beliefs in the ability of some people to harm or even kill people through various forms of spell-casting.

When a shaman like the one in the video uses the term witchcraft, he is, somewhat ironically, closer to the actual meaning of the original term. It's clear from his comments that he is referring to malicious sorcery.

The hybridization of Christianity and indigenous shamanism is one of the most fascinating aspects of this documentary, which was made as part of Luis Eduardo Luna's field work in the Peruvian Amazon. It is also somewhat jarring, as is apparent in some of the comments posted on YouTube. It is an apparently benign religious drift. The merging of Christianity and tribal beliefs, though, isn't always harmless and has led to numerous witch persecutions in third world countries. I touched on this here in a discussion of Sarah Palin's mentor, Kenyan witch-hunter Thomas Muthee. I also posted recently about the disappearances of a number of Peruvian shamans which have been tied to fundamentalist Christian officials in the region.

What I find singularly horrifying about Kerby's post is that he seems to believe that these murderous witch hunters have something to teach us about the dangers of everything from Harry Potter (which is actually based in Western alchemy) to modern-day Wiccans, Druids, and other Pagans. He also touches on Arab persecutions of sorcerers and those who consort with the djinn. Here's a lovely example from Saudi Arabia. Yet, somehow, what Kerby seems to find disturbing is all the witchery that goes on, not the fact that innocent people are being killed for it.

The problem with some of this Christian outreach and missionary zeal is that it simultaneously feeds the fear of sorcery and disavows shamanism as a healing practice, viewing it all as "witchcraft." Don Emilio repeatedly refers to his own work as aligned with Christ and as a tool to use against sorcery. It is the distinction between the shaman as healer, or curandero, and the sorcerer. Sorcery, again, is a term that is subject to semantic variation and isn't negative in every context but to a Latin American shaman it's a very negative term. Shaman Christina Pratt draws the distinction thusly: A sorcerer is someone who uses the same tools as a shaman but for the highest bidder. (I'm paraphrasing from memory.) It's the difference between having a moral compass and not.

In a recent show, Christina waded into the sorcery issue again and dealt specifically with the subject of curses. I'll be very honest and say that this subject is way over my head. Psychic attacks and the like are just so far outside my paradigm, I don't feel able to speak to them. From my perspective, as a mystical thinker, I consider it impossible to attack someone else without tearing yourself apart in the process. Because my beliefs and practices are mystical, I don't actually think it's possible to "put a spell" on anyone but myself because I am the source of my reality. To put it another way, I can't bend the spoon without bending myself, so I couldn't damage the spoon without damaging myself. In any event, to any Pagan or shaman, dark sorcery is frowned upon. It also subjects the practitioner to painful blow-back -- the three-fold law and all that.

So, in sum, I highly recommend the video above as a small window into the world of ayahuasca using shamans. I also recommend Christina's show on curses as well as interviews she did with Steven Beyer on working with plant teachers. Both, I think, lend some context to the documentary. Beyer explains the "diet" of the initiate into plant medicine, for example.

And, I think Rob Kerby is a menace and an embarrassment to a site that still at least gives lip service to ecumenicism and support for the Pagan community.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

DC40 Counter Event Gets Beliefnet Treatment

Buy From Art.com

Well, I still have my Beliefnet News feed, despite my disgust, and today I noticed an interesting item on a DC40 counter event coming up. Rob Kerby's post pretty much sticks to the press release and doesn't editorialize much. But if you're thinking the story was treated fairly, 'fraid not.

Here's the relevant info from Capital Witch:

Priestesses and priests from the Washington, DC Pagan community will hold a Celebration of the Divine Feminine and Religious Freedom in Lafayette Square Park across from the White House on Sunday, October 30th, 2011, as a protest to the New Apostolic Reformation’s 51-day prayer campaign targeting Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Heathens, and other Goddess-worshipers nationwide.

The New Apostolic Reformation is a Dominionist group of Christians preaching that all feminine forms of deity are demonic.  The NAR is engaged in a 51-day campaign of imprecatory prayer to create a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the USA.  Republican presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are influenced by the NAR agenda.

. . .

The event in Lafayette Square Park begins at noon and ends at 5pm on Sunday, October 30th, Samhain eve to many Pagans, leading into one of the most holy days of the Pagan year. “Samhain, or Halloween, is the Feast of the Ancestors in some of our Pagan religions.  We will invoke the Founding Fathers and Mothers of our nation during our ceremony, along with a multitude of Goddesses from pantheons both ancient and modern.  Among our Goddesses will be Lady Liberty and Columbia, the Goddess who stands guard atop the Capitol Building,” said Ms. Kenner.  “The New Apostolic Reformation people would topple Columbia from Her pinnacle, and rename DC the District of Christ.”

So, that much is completely awesome and I'm glad to know about it. Whether you're going or not, I'd say that'd be a good time to join in in spirit and Om the Dome.

While much of the Kerby's post is "just the facts" there is a bit of subtle snark, like the lede which could be read as Pagans being irritated that Christians are praying for the country.

A group that says it represents the District of Columbia’s pagan community is upset that a group of Christians is praying for America.

He also put Samhain eve in quotes which makes it look like it's something novel that the organizers made up, as opposed to an established holiday. That's particularly alarming when you consider that Beliefnet has a Pagan community section... for now.

All of that I could let go but where the bias really becomes apparent is in the disappearing comments. When I first read this story earlier today there was a very smart comment from, if memory serves, someone named Erica. It's gone now. I wish I'd taken a screen capture. It didn't occur to me that it would be deleted. When will I learn?! The comment said something about how Erica (???) was reading the founding father's writings every day of the DC40 as a reminder of how committed they were to the separation of church and state. I'm not doing it justice.

It's funny. One of the other things I've been noticing about Beliefnet over the past several months is the paucity of comments. There used to be a lot more. I assumed their readership was down or that the news stories just weren't interesting enough to invite comment. I'm rethinking that. It would seem that only comments that echo Kerby's views are welcome. The rest go down the memory hole. And it would seem that separation of church and state is not big with Mr. Kerby. Good to know.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Beliefnet Goes Bigot

Remember when Beliefnet.com was all about tolerance and religious diversity? Well, I do. I'm not saying there wasn't the occasional dustup. And, in fairness, I've never been a really active member or reader. But it was always a good place to find interesting content on many different religions and events around the globe pertaining to religion.

Years ago I put a Beliefnet news feed on my iGoogle page and often saw interesting items scroll through. More recently, however, I've noticed a dramatic shift in tone. It's taken a sharp Christian Right turn. I often see articles that seem to pit the Christian West against other cultures -- Muslims in particular. I toyed with the idea of removing the feed but I haven't as yet. It's taken on a kind of compelling, train-wreck quality. Periodically I just have to see what bold, new wingnuttery is gracing its pages.

Now, bear in mind, this is the feed for Beliefnet News. It's the not the Christian section, let alone the Christian Right section, which doesn't exist as near as I can tell. Well, it wouldn't need to because now the news section is fitting that particular bill.

The news feed used to bring reprints or excerpts from world religion related news stories without commentary. Now it appears to be the blog of one Rob Kerby who I'm afraid holds the title of Senior Editor. So is he a Christianist (to borrow a Sullyism) and bigot? Here's a recent post.

Members of the football team stomped out of a Hartford, Connecticut, high school assembly when a pro-homosexual advocacy play featured two boys kissing on stage.

. . .

It apparently did not occur to [Principal David Chambers] that some of the kids had moral issues with the scene — believing that glorifying same-gender romance is wrong. Chambers’ intent was to wear down the students sense of disgust and discomfort with viewing homosexuality on stage.

He goes on to quote a bevy of outraged Christians and closes with this:

“I applaud the young men that got up and left the show,” wrote Jacqueline. ”It shows courage to stand up for what is right. Instead of sitting by silently and being forced to accept views they do not agree with, they stood up for their on beliefs and convictions. Real men stand with courage for what is right.”

I posted a comment questioning the pro-bigotry tone of the piece. I asked why these supposedly Bible believing Christians aren't demanding the execution of gay people, along the lines of points I addressed here. And I asked when these Christians were going to stop slacking and go after all the pork and shellfish eaters. As you can plainly see, that comment is no longer there. So I attempted to post another comment questioning the censorious nature of the site. It wouldn't post so they've clearly blocked my IP or something.

So, the "news" section of Beliefnet is now little more than a megaphone for far right, Christianist bigotry and they're not tolerating any questions about that policy. Pity. It used to be a very worthwhile site.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.