Hail Apollon!

This is also one of the best summaries of the whole situation I have yet to see. Very well done!

I think that going through things like this is the only way to truly understand why such protocols were originally in place.

Thank you for sharing your journey.

I am so sorry to hear of your loss.

Thank you for sharing your story: I feel I know you a tiny bit better as a result.

This issue has been decisively resolved as of last night: http://thehouseofvines.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/t...

One of the best discussions of this issue I've encountered so far.

Though I've pretty much given up any pretense of being involved in the local Pagan community - I've had a much better time and met a far higher quality of people by going to various artistic, historical and other cultural events - I will say that it really depends on where one is. There are some great Neopagans out there who will be interested in what you're doing and believe and would never ask you to compromise your practice just to participate with them. I think the fear that a lot of recons have about this unfortunately keeps them isolated and insular, missing out on some great people and experiences.

And yet I've already seen several grossly distorting Hutton's words for their own ends this morning. They believe what they want to believe and twist and misrepresent the evidence to conform to and confirm their biases.

Aren't people funny?

No need to go that far back. From the moment that Christianity broke away from Judaism it has been a movement of violence, intimidation and oppression:
http://eklogai.wordpress.com/tag/persecution/

That and getting lumped in with the nutjobs.

Ha! You think Heathens are under-represented here at the Wild Hunt you should try belonging to the cult of the deified Marcus Antonius. I don't think that Ciceronian has mentioned us once the whole time he's been blogging! Granted, there's only about 5-10 of us left in the world today and we haven't done a whole lot that's newsworthy of late, but why should that matter?!?!

In all seriousness this is Jason's blog and he can write about whatever the hell he wants. If he felt like devoting himself entirely to the culture of knitting and cupcake-making he'd have every right to do so. Instead each day he provides a valuable resource linking the broad and diverse Pagan communities together and informing us of important things that are happening in our world that might potentially affect us. He provides this content free of charge even though it must consume hours and hours of his day to track down the material and stay abreast of unfolding developments in older stories. Complaining about something that's just handed to you shows poor character - especially since close scrutiny of this site would reveal, as others have pointed out, that Heathenry actually gets a substantial amount of airtime alongside the Afro-Carribean religions. Wicca may get more of that, but Wiccans are numerically superior and many of them are in the forefront of the battles for equal rights and recognition.