I went to the Adirondack Pagan Pride Day on Saturday over at Adirondack Community College in Queensbury. There were the usual collection of vendors and a couple of tarot readers, belly dancers, and several workshops. Patricia Telesco was there promoting her books. She gave a fine talk on community-building. Folks from the Society for Creative Anachronisms were dressed in homemade battle armor. They allowed audience members to come up and bang their shields with pretend swords. I tried it myself. That was fun! Belly dancers danced to the beat of drums. Kids got their faces painted and colored pictures of the Green Man. There were two tattoo artists from a local business who attracted quite a few customers.
John Albee and some other folks from the First Church of Satan were in attendance and scheduled to give a workshop on their beliefs. That caused a bit of controversy with a local branch of the Catholic League and within some members of the pagan community itself.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue bashed the Adirondack Pagan Pride Day several days before the event. Under the sensational headline SUNY PROMOTES SATANISM, he observed the following:
“ACC Student Association, which is hosting Pagan Pride Day, says the event is free to the public and is designed to be ‘a celebration of religious diversity.’ But nothing is free—New York taxpayers are paying for this event—and a panel on religious diversity that was initially considered will not occur. However, Patricia Telesco will be there, author of How to be a Wicked Witch, and so will John Allee, a Satanic priest and founder of the First Church of Satan."
The specific amount of money-- a five hundred dollar honorium for Patricia Telesco, a witch and author traveling from Buffalo NY-- was voted on by the students. Mr. Donahue's observation about New York taxpayers funding the event was partially correct. Taxpayer money did not pay for the whole thing. And he forgot to mention that a few of the New York taxpayers are pagans. Some of the students who attend Adirondack Community College are also pagan. Thus, I don't have a problem with the expenditure. It was done in accordance with the laws of New York State and did not violate any separation-of-church-and-state concerns that some of us [myself included] have. Anyone who has read Ms. Telesco's books knows that she is not a satanist. Her book titled How to be a Wicked Witch will not lead anyone down the left-hand path, I promise.
I certainly have no fondness for Anton LeVey. I am not a satanist. For several years now, I have heard the heated arguements and protests gushing forth from the pagan community regarding satanism being a form of christianity in disguise. Witches, wiccans, pagans don't "believe" in the devil, the outcries go. Christians do. Satan is a christian construct. Ergo, satanists are actually christians. Ask any satanist about that and they will beg to differ.
The problem as I see it is that the christians don't want the satanists in their camp. The witches don't either. The satanists tend to ride on the coattails of witches. That is rather unfortunate. The literalist christians use that to bolster their claim that witches are satanists. I am sure though that even if the satanists decided that they were not witches, the fundamentalists would still attack earth-centered spiritualities and religions as being of the [christian] devil.
The committee who decides whether or not to allow the satanists to give a workshop every year seems unable to get the balls up to exclude the satanists. The committee down in Albany several years ago was also unable to decline the offer. "Chickenshits!" is the word that comes readily to my tongue when reflecting upon this sorry state of affairs.
But Pagan Pride Day Committees are not the only ones who have difficulty excluding undesirables. Quite a few Gay Pride Celebrations are infiltrated by the sickos from NAMBLA marching under their own banner and openly proclaiming man-boy "love." NAMBLA members wish to be known as homosexual when in fact they are sexual predators of the worst sort. "Bastards!" is the word that springs to my mind for them, along with visions of attending the Lorena Bobbitt School of Surgery and forcing them to be my unwitting patients. Those bastards should be left in solitary confinement in prisons to rot. Or put them to death. But I digress.
In spite of the inclusion of satanists at Pagan Pride Day events, I will continue to attend gatherings of pagans because I am one. I can [and do] exercise my free will by choosing to pet John Albee's dog and choosing to excuse myself from attending satan-themed workshops. [And I will continue to march in Gay Pride Parades while choosing not to march under the NAMBLA banner]. I am sorry that the folks over at the Catholic League feel left out of the fun. Pagans have been left out for a number of years. It is only by building community that we can enforce our visibility as a community and as a people working toward the betterment of our world.
~radical sapphoq
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