ACLU on Censorship In Jail Letters

The American Civil Liberties Union has sent a letter to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia, asking officials to stop the practice of eliminating passages of scripture from letters received by inmates. According to a press release, the ACLU has asked "for jail officials to guarantee in writing that the jail will no longer censor biblical passages from letters written to detainees and to revise the jail's written inmate mail policy to state that letters will not be censored simply because they contain religious material."

The complaint first came to the attention of the ACLU when a devout Christian mother sent a three-page letter to her son, a detainee at the jail. By the time officials got done with censoring all the religious passages, the letter consisted of one very short paragraph. Rebecca Glenberg, Legal Director for the ACLU of Virginia, says, "Arbitrarily banning religious material is in direct odds with our nation's constitutional values."

While it would be easy to dismiss this as just another case of Christians stomping their feet when they don't get their way, in fact, it's far more significant than that. It's important to recognize that if religious quotations from one group can be censored, then certainly other can be as well, which means that if Biblical verses can be cut out of a mother's letter, then when you send a letter including the Charge of the Goddess (or whatever), that too can be snipped away at the whim of jail officials.

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Make $$ as a Witch

I once joked to a friend that it would be nice if people just paid me to be a witch, and now it appears that a British historical site is offering some (lucky?) soul just that opportunity. The Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset are apparently seeking out a witch to live in the caves, cackle a bit, and cause blight and crop failures. Yanno, 'cause that's what we do.

A spokesman says Wookey Hole is currently witchless, because the previous one retired. The £50,000-a-year salary is based on work done as needed, mostly during peak tourist times like summer and Christmas, but also at Halloween - go figure. The ad says that "ambitious witches looking for a "key career move" should arrive dressed for work armed with any "essential witch accoutrements". In other words, show up looking as stereotypical as you possibly can. Feel free to attach a wart to your nose and color your skin green, because it sure sounds like that's what they have in mind.

Interviews for the job, which is open to both male and female applicants, take place on July 28 at Wookey Hole.

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Australia to Ban Ayers Rock Climbers

In Australia, the sacred site known as Ayers Rock to some folks, but as Uluru to the aboriginal populattion, has been a popular site for rock-climbers over the decades. The climbing was reluctantly allowed by tribal leaders, but now national parks officials have decided it's just not safe anymore, and have opted to make the rock off limits to thrill-seekers.

Over thirty people have died attempting to reach the top of Uluru, and parks authorities said this week, "For visitor safety, cultural, and environmental reasons the (national parks) director and the board will work towards closure of the climb."

Regional officials are opposed to the closure, saying it will cause Australia's steadily-dropping tourism numbers to decline even further. However, on a national level, it appears that parks officials are suggesting that the regional authorities come up with alternative activities to draw tourists in. The Australian Tourism Export Council supports the ban, and managing director Matt Hingerty said, "While some tourists have sought the opportunity to climb Uluru, the inbound tourism industry respects and acknowledges that the rights of Uluru's traditional owners should be paramount with regards to this issue."

In other words, they get that it's a tourist attraction, but it's also a site of cultural significance. It's a positive step to see that the Australian government is listening to the needs of the aboriginal population in this situation.

Last summer, we talked about Uluru in a slightly different context, when tourists began returning illegally obtained bits of rock to Australia, believing they were cursed.

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Air Force Turns Down Church Fly-By

We've spoken a lot here about the overt evangelizing that some of our military members face, in the form of both vocal preaching and more subtle mainstream-religion maneuvering. Groups like the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) have done a lot to educate both active duty military folks and their civilian counterparts about the things that go on in the Armed Forces, but the fact remains that if you're not Christian, you're a minority in the military. That's why this report is kind of refreshing.

The military has, for many years, provided flyovers at events which, while billed as "patriotic," are often evangelical in nature. In particular, there have been incidents in which B-2s have done flyovers during Christian testimonies and religious services. Chris Rodda over at The Daily Kos says, "The military was regularly providing flyovers at countless evangelical Christian events all over the country, not only violating the regulations prohibiting military participation in religious events, but spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the process."

Now, however, it looks like the times they might be a-changin'. For the first time in about four decades, a request for a military flyover by a Christian evangelist group has been rejected. Organizers of the God and Country Festival in Idaho asked for support from a local Air Force squadron, but they received a letter that read, in part, "Air Force and DoD policy prohibit support for events which appear to endorse, selectively benefit, or favor any special interest group, religious or ideological movement."

Naturally, the folks from God and Country are sure that this is all Barack Obama's fault, claiming that it's a "slap in the face" to members of the various branches of the service. On the flip side, MRFF is applauding the decision, and president Mikey Weinstein says 'It may have taken 42 years to get this right decision from the Air Force, but better late than never."

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Paganism in Modern Russia

We spend a lot of time here discussing activities related to Pagans in the English-speaking world, and it's sometimes easy to overlook the fact that there are Pagans and Wiccans all over the globe. Newsday has an interesting article reminding us of that, in which they interview several members of a Russian Pagan group.

Paganism has faced a lot of obstacles in Russia, no small thanks to the Orthodox church, which regularly denounces practices that are based in ancient Slavic tradition. In addition, some Pagans have been linked to right-wing extremist groups, and so mainstream society tends to see them as controversial.

At any rate, it's an interesting peek at a small group of people who gathered near Maloyaroslavets to celebrate the summer solstice. The ritual, which was a fertility celebration known as Ivan Kupala, focused on "self-purification, unity with forces of nature and the honoring of the Sun god."

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