thank you for the remembrance and appreciation Jason, it is shared, with sadness and pride.

Travel well Sleazy, in love, undeniable and courageous.

thanks for the clarification of your concerns William, I can see where you're coming from. I need to read the book too :0)

can't say I do, I don't think he's saying anyone shouldn't believe in the gods, just that in rock music things manifest best naturally and without too much self consciousness, and that some interesting things do manifest. I have to agree with him on that really.

Lovely! I remember feeling this kind of thing about the magical-religious impulse of rock music around punk in the mid-late seventies. I certainly felt taken beyond myself in the most life affirming, affectionate and good humoured way at a Fucked Up gig in the summer :0) I'll look out for Christopher's book. Thanks for the interview Jason.

actually, the "sinfulness" reference relates to a marriage/relationship counsellor who refused to work with same sex couples as part of the organisation Relate, on the basis of their religious convictions. You get the drift though. The registrar was another case with a similar claiming of infringement of religious rights.

let me just address the one thing that bothers me in your reply Apuleius, as the rest is your passionate opinion and probably applies more to the US experience than the UK, though I would leave it to others to decide if you are correct, mistaken or a mixture of the two in respect of the former.

Nowhere in my post have I suggested that defending human rights does not include the rights of others. Please note that.

I have made it quite clear that my doubts about the developing discourse over "religious rights" in the UK concern their use to *deny* the human and civil rights of others. An example of this is two cases of Christian registrars who refuse to do their job in performing same sex civil partnerships on the basis of their religious beliefs and opinions about the "sinfulness" of two people effectively getting married in all but name (civil partnership is a legal parallel to marriage here), though it clearly is their job to perform services without discrimination or judgement of the people who legally apply to them for those services. These people have suffered in their jobs as any professional incapable of doing their job would, not because of their faith, but because they refuse to do their job. These two registrars have claimed denial of their religious rights. In other words, in their view, it is their religious right to discriminate against others because their religion tells them to in their opinion.

These are not the only examples, but they are typical of this discourse. This discourse does not include us and is not intended to include us as Pagans, and its essence is that it sees itself as above the concerns of secular human rights. It doesn't take part in this arrogation for the sake of all religions and religious people (which wouldn't wash with me either, though it would also be unworkable), but for the sake of *their* religion. Our developing rights as Pagans here do not come from this kind of use of "religious rights", but from a pluralism that has it's origin in *reducing* religions to the same level, not elevating them socially. I think that's an important distinction.

I have used the term "human rights" not as an abstraction, but because I thought it would be understood in terms of the inequalities and sufferings that these issues refer to. The issues are very concrete. Human rights are seen as universal in principle obviously because they apply to all human beings. "Religious rights", as used by some of their supposed advocates, are entirely partisan.

Some people use religion as a weapon, and using religion as a weapon is all too well established unfortunately. Secular thought has I think been key in disarming religion, and that in itself brings about religious freedom, including freedom from religion of course. So whatever conception of rights we choose, as Pagans I suggest we continue to work for religious disarmament. The arguments in the UK are I think largely about the decay of religious power.

Time to compost!

I haven't heard of any stampedes ;0)

I think we live in an essentially post-religious society in the UK, but we're still catching up, while the Church isn't of course. The majority culture treats religion as a largely personal matter, ie they have a secular take on religion. Not Dawkins' take on religion, and not the Archbishop's take on religion.

The Church of England tries to weakly straddle modernity while holding on to its superior privilege, and bleats endlessly about Christians having their rights taken away if they aren't allowed to discriminate against others.

The Church's privilege at the top hasn't been dismantled, but simply ignored by most people. Unfortunately that gives it the impression that it still has a popular mandate, conveniently ignoring the fact that we didn't chose it in the first place.

When you hear "religious rights" quoted over and over as an excuse to ignore civil rights (as the Church is fond of doing, especially it seems when it comes to gay and lesbian rights, for some reason best known to themselves) you have to have pause for thought. Do we really want to join this club of declaimers? Personally I welcome a post-religious world when it's *that* kind of religion, and what kind of "right" is it that has to curtail another person's human rights? And what kind of sense of religion do I want in our society? I have to come to the conclusion that "religion as a personal matter" is a very wise choice, as it's given me needed freedoms. And that is essentially a secular evolution in thought.

I hear a lot of Pagans talking about religious rights, but I think it would be better if we focussed on human rights and work from there. We stand to lose a LOT from the assertion of other people's "religious rights", but gain an enormous amount from common human rights. I don't need religious rights, I need the other stuff, and equality will take care of the rest, but the anachronism of religious privilege needs to go.