A case in California challenges the state's system of recognizing only five faiths -- Protestant Christianity, Catholic Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Native American spirituality -- in authorizing who is to be prison chaplains. (h/t The Wild Hunt)
And a conservative religious organization called the WallBuilders seeks a ruling that reinforces that two-tiered system.
A couple of thoughts...
1) UUs should be (and I'm sure are) part of the coalition seeking to overturn that discriminatory law, purely on grounds of our broader principles. But bluntly, since so many people consider UUs not Christian, I can't help wondering if non-Christian UU chaplains would be rejected too?
2) I can't think of a more appropriate name for the petitioning anti-pagan group than WallBuilders. (Even if that's not how they meant it.)
14 hours ago
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This statement by Wiccan chaplain Patrick McCollum, complainant in the CA suit, about Wallbuilders, et al, I think captures it very well, "... 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."
ReplyDeleteWallbuilders is a group of Dominionist theocratic Christians founded by David Barton, best known as an author of revisionist American pseudo-history.