73 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
73 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
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WITCHES PRESSING FOR RELIGIOUS RIGHTS
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By Bob Harvey, religious editor, Ottawa Citizen.
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Canadian witchcraft is growing up and becoming an institution.
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Witches have formed two different national associations to press
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governments for the rights they say they deserve as abona fide
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religion.
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Among the privaleges being demanded by the Wiccan Church of
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Canada and the Congregationalist Witchcraft Association of Canada: the
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right to marry and bury their adherents, and federal status as
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tax-exempt charities.
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The Toronto-based Wiccan Church is 13 years old, and
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participates as a full member of an Ontario Interfaith
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chaplaincy commitee. That opens the doors for Wiccan Priests and
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Priestesses to visit members in provincial jails and hospitals.
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The Congregationalist Witchcraft Association of Canada is based
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in Vancouver, and has only recently obtained its charter as a non-profit
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association.
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Tamarra James, one of the founders of the Wiccan Church, argues,
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with some justification, that as long as governments deny Wiccan
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priests and priestesses the right to conduct marriages and
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funerals, Canadian witches are being denied the freedom of
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religion.
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"These are rites of passage which from time out of mind are the
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provinces of religion."
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Already, groups like at least one spiritualist church have such
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rights, and the witches deserve as much. But the witches' quest is not
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just a simple human rights issue.
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There are two problems the witches will have to overcome. The
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first is that when governments give religious groups the right to
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leaglly marry people, they grant tacit endorsement to the groups. That's
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why Ontario demands a religious group be incorporated in the province
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for 25 years before it can apply to have its ministers or priests
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lecensed to perform marriages.
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If the group makes it through 25 years without causing any
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public scandals, the government can probably safely grant it the right
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to marry its members.
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A bigger problem for the witches will be overcomming a neagative
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image that is centuries old.
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That image is on display every year at Halloween, a festival
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that's sacred to witches. James says may of the depictions of witches in
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children's books are simply hate literature, and many Wiccan children
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come home from school with tears in their eyes the first time they're
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pressured to draw pictures of horrendous-looking witches.
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The stereotyping is obviously wrong, but the reality is still
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that many Canadians may never be comfortable with the idea of being
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buried next to a witch whose gravesite has been consecrated in Wiccan
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rituals. After all, Ontario still has different cemetaries for Jews and
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Christians who want to be buried in ground consecrated by their won
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faiths.
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Some of the beliefs of Canadian witches are set out in a
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statement by the Congregationalist Witchcraft Association that James
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says the Wiccan Church would also have little difficulty with.
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Those beliefs include:
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It is appropriate to name and worship a variety of gods and
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goddesses.
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We can, through petition, action and ritual, cause change in the
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world in accrding with our wills.
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All acts of love and pleasure are acts of praise of the goddess.
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This specifically includes all non-coercive sexual orientations.
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Like it or not, those and other beliefs of Canada's witches
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would still be vehemently opposed by many Canadians. That opposition
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from other religious groups is likely to ge the biggest stumbling block
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for witches trying to win greater recognition by government.
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(Reproduced from The Ottawa Citizen, March 1992).
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