The University of Edinburgh has granted permission to the Pagan Society to hold its annual conference – involving talks on witchcraft, pagan weddings and tribal dancing – on campus next month. Druids, heathens, shamans and witches are expected to attend what is a major event in the pagan calendar.
But the move has enraged the Christian Union, which accuses the university of double standards after banning one of its events on the “dangers” of homosexuality.
The Union has won strong backing from the Catholic Church in Scotland, whose spokesman, Simon Dames, felt that allowing the pagan festival to go ahead while barring the Union meeting was an example of “Christianphobia”.
John Macintyre, presiding officer of the Pagan Federation Scotland, stressed that his faith was based on tolerance and backed the university for opposing “hurtful” discriminatory behaviour. “Pagans, as a rule, don’t believe that sexist or homophobic views are acceptable and discrimination on that basis is deplorable,” he said.
I’ll bet the Pagans get a larger turnout for their events – especially the dancing – anyway.
“Christianphobia” …hmm kinda like homophobia?
Double standard as in not letting the christian hate/fear/shame agenda in while letting a group that doen’t preach discrimination in? If thats a double standard then i guess i support a double standard.
jesus, please slap these people.
Oh, booo hooo, poor little Christians didn’t get their hate fest. I feel like this is a good day for humanity!
Now how did I know an article starting with “All hell breaks out” wouldn’t involve christians eventually?
Too bad she’s a pagan, that girl in the photo looks like she needs a good spanking.
#4…BubbaRay….*****to bad she’s a pagan*****….what’s wrong?….pagans need spankings too. 🙂
Between pagans and creationist… who’s most fucked up?
How ironic, I’m actually a physics student at the University of Edinburgh, didn’t know about the pagan meeting until now, but I do remember reading about the banning of the Christian union’s thing.
Basically they wanted to hold a meeting talking about homosexuality as an abomination – naturally the university supports equality and rightly had to disallow it in my personal opinion.
I believe everyone has a right to their beliefs up until you start preaching hatred of someone’s sexuality or race et cetera. I mean if we were to take everything that the bible says literally, from the same book it says anyone working the sabbath should be killed and the recommended retail price for a man should be 50 shekels of silver, for a woman only 30. I don’t mean to mock religion but Aristotle said It is the mark of an educated person to be able to entertain a thought without instantly believing it, which is why I was a little scared to read that according a new pole 31% of Americans think the bible should be taken literally.
Let’s see here…
The pagans want to have some harmless fun and inform people about their beliefs without alienating anyone.
The Christians want to spread hate (instead of spreading love like WE’RE SUPPOSED TO as ordered by Christ himself) and spread their agenda by alienating homosexuals.
No contest. Let the pagans be.
#6
Hmmm… a Tree hugger VS a Bible thumper… When no one’s watching they’re screwing each other.
sorry, if you are going to let the pagans in, you gotta let the Christians in. that’s straight from Freedom of Religion 101.
But then, I am one of them freedom-crazy Americans.
#7: Is that another American/British spelling idosyncrasy; pole instead of poll?
And the thirty-one percent who said they believe the bible is literal just said that ’cause the old lady was listening. Any other time they’d be swilling beer, shooting pool and talking trash to the barmaids.
Best treatment of this problem have been published in the form of the South Park episode… To summarize, it is “acceptance vs. tolerance”. For those who didn’t see the cartoon: Gay teacher is flaunting his lifestyle to the absurd degree. Authorities send anyone who object to the “Camp” (appropriately similar to the Nazi deth camps) for “not beeing tolerant”. Until the children bring it to the point that you don’t need to accept someone to tolerate them….
That simple fact eluded great Edin’boro U. At least they didn’t send Christians to the Camp… For now… (Coming from the ex-communist country I can testify that once you start banning things for the “public good”, nothing good comes out).
Doug is correct. Whatever your feelings on Christians, if you allow one religion while disallowing one that you admittedly don’t like, you become a vehicle of discrimination yourself.
#13
Including non-religious folks?
#14, Jägermeister,
I liked the link, especially the Holiday Program, where we’ll explore the traditions of December, followed by a pagan ritual to celebrate Yule !!
#14. Yes. that’s the dangerous thing about creating a public forum for speech – you can’t discriminate amongst the players. From the article you linked:
“if one community group is allowed to use a distribution program at a school, then all groups must be given the same access.”
civil libertarians (particularly secular ones like myself) have to recognize that free speech protects EVERYBODY.
#7….William Ogilvie….You suffer from the same PC misconception that a lot of your countrymen suffer from. It’s why you have less personal freedom than we pagan Yanks.
Your goverment(and the EU goverment as well, to be fair) believes that open discussion and exchange of ideas, good or bad are not a good thing. As you said, Edinburgh Uni supports **equality** unless your idea isn’t the same as their’s. What makes the Pagans any more acceptable than the Christian group? Nothing more than someone’s personal prejudice or the personal prejudice’s of a group(like the Union). This attitude of banning speech is why political parties such as the BNP are becoming larger with each election. When there can’t be a free and maybe rancourous discussion of societies problems, you end up with festoring of grieviences and parties like the BNP.
Europeans(and a lot of left wing and right wing Americans) believe you can surpress an idea or a cult by banning it. Thats just stupid, you can’t regulate thought. You might silience the bigots and haters, but you won’t keep them from still hating.
There really is something to be said for free speech.
#10 – A university also has the right to disallow gatherings specifically based around an intolerant or hateful theme. The pagan conference is a general celebration and discussion of their faith.
The christian event was about the “dangers” of homosexuality. Another thing the school would have had to deal with is the inevitable protests, and, if it became charged enough, violence as well. If they held it off-site, the school would have nothing to say about it.
One person’s freedom ends where another’s begins.
I did mean poll of course, not pole, I knew it looked wrong last night but it was after midnight, was just back from the pub, and I was just about to go to bed; besides I never said I was good at English – I’m a Physics student. =)
I do take the point that if you allow one opinion then you must allow another, even if it’s contrary to your own beliefs; that is what freedom is all about. Incidentally, in the recent Scottish elections there was a party who ran which apparently had some problem with children being taught about homosexuality as their primary concern, and had in their literature ‘homosexuals are an abomination, this isn’t about homophobia it’s about freedom’. I thought it was a load of rubbish, but I don’t discount that they have a right to be allowed to say it if they want.
In this particular case, and I admit it was a controversial decision, the Christian union wanted to teach a course on the students’ association grounds preaching (they admitted there would be absolutely no debate allowed) that the ‘gay cure’ was abstinence. The argument of the students’ union was the Christian society was allowing no alternative views to be allowed on this course and therefore could not be permitted on their premises. The Christian society said homosexuals could run their own course if they wanted and this was censorship.
I don’t necessarily agree that either party was totally in the right, however, I do take issue with people who say… homosexuality is an abomination since the bible says so and the bible is the word of god, when in the same instance ignoring the fact that the bible also says we should go around stoning people who do work (e.g. doing as much as cutting your grass) on the Sabbath… where are the classes on that? Do these people concede that the bible perhaps has some outdated ideas? If so, why can’t the homosexuality issue be outdated? At the very least allow debate in the classroom as to whether this too is just as crazy as some of the rest of the stuff. In other words, what I’m getting at is I don’t think this had anything to do with religion; it has everything to do with people not liking homosexuality, and using the bible as an excuse to justify their prejudice. I actually personally believe there’s something not right about homosexuality, certainly it is not for me, but I don’t say it’s wrong just because I don’t like it – live and let live. Essentially I believe, and the students’ union believed, this course was tantamount to hate speech. If you’re not willing to allow debate then I am afraid I do agree it should not have been held on my union grounds. That’s not to say I don’t think it should be allowed at another venue and that point I want made clear.
Furthermore, I did not say I dislike Christianity, I actually had a Christian upbringing, but as a student I believe it’s one of your key responsibilities to question and don’t automatically subscribe to any beliefs simply because that’s what a book says – a book written by men after all.
Also I’d just like to add on another personal note that I grew up believing that America had everything right when it came to free speech, I have the utmost respect for the ideals, but unfortunately as a young man it seems those ideals are constantly being attacked and eroded, and I sadly I do believe it credible that 31% of Americans do believe the bible should be taken literally when you have a president who says he is on a mission from god, and that god is giving him directions. There’s a lot of idiots out there, both in Scotland and in America. I’m not bashing anyone so please don’t think I am.
That’s just my two cents worth and I’m not interested in a flame war since after all I am also entitled to my freedom of speech.
Equating the Christian event directly with the pagan event isn’t quite fair, due to their differing subject matter, so let me propose a hypothetical situation… What if the theme of the pagan conference had been the dangers of Christianity? Permission to hold that event on campus would probably have been denied as well, and the Christians would have been quite satisfied with that outcome.
The article gives a little more detail about the circumstances of the Christian conference as well. A compromise had been offered by the university to allow their course on the dangers of homosexuality, but only if posters representing differing views could be prominently displayed. Apparently, the Christians did not want to go forward with their event crippled by those opposing viewpoints, and they are dismayed that the same condition is not attached to the pagan conference.
The Greatest Dangers of Homosexuality
1) Unsafe sex, allowing transmission of STDs
2) Christians who secretly want to stone you
#21. “What if the theme of the pagan conference had been the dangers of Christianity? Permission to hold that event on campus would probably have been denied as well, and the Christians would have been quite satisfied with that outcome.”
Then they would have been hypocrites, a situation many religious people seem quite comfortable with. But the free-speech rights of the pagans would still have been violated.
#19. well put. I disagree with your opinion on how much editorial control the school should have, but you make your point.
So the issue here is not free speech but whether or not the University applied its speech standards correctly or in error by way of a double standard?
Seems to me the University has a standard that you cannot preach anti-gay material without atleast allowing for the other side to be presented at the same time.
Regardless of anyone’s opinion about free speech, catholics, pagans, gays etc, its clear the standard was evenly applied.
Wish I lived in Scotland.. But maybe I can make it to the burning man this year. Another similar pagan festival.
#22 doug, there’s always a perfectly valid ongoing discussion and tension between supporters of an “anything goes” approach to free speech, and those who think there can be limits that don’t destroy its fundamental usefulness and purpose. Even when people disagree, the key is usually in fair and evenhanded enforcements of those limits.
The humor I see in this is that in the conflict between pagans and Christians, the pagans would appear to many of us to occupy the high ground. Their conference is informational and instructive in nature, whereas the purpose of the Christians was to spread condemnation based on alleged immorality. And we all know their historical punishment for this particular alleged immorality…
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble…
Oh, shucks, it’s just a coven of Christians 😉
WHAT MANY CHRISTATIONS FORGET IS THAT THERE ARE 3,000 more faiths in the world,and that the christians themselves do not practice the old testament., but jesus himself said we must never change anything in the bible, but the same christians have. IT IS EASIER FOR HEAVEN AND EARTH TO PASS AWAY THan FOR THE SMALLEST PART OF THE LETTER OF THE LAW TO BECOME INVALID( LUKE 16:17 NAB) BY THE WAY I AM A PAGAN. THERE IS NO HELL HELL IS WHEN YOU FATHER RAPES YOU . OR YOU ARE STARVING IN AFRICA.
26,
Umm..
jesus couldnt talk about the Bible it was written LONG after he died.
the dangers of any and all sexual practice should be engaged with by such an origination , the acceptance of homosexual behavior
as a norm is far from reality , pedophilia and homosexual behavior ,the grooming of persons from a young age ,While not excepting the dangers and realities of such practices , including the christian ideology sacrifice ,rejection of family, as with the jewish worship of child deaths, and zoinest acceptance of causing suffering to others to gain your desire , and the understanding and acceptance of infanticide as described in the bible and the reasoning of acceptance such thing from figure of authority