Scout's admission of being Wiccan leads to turmoil

Gather ^ | May 9, 2006 | Melanie Crownover

[Shimmer128]

I agree with that! I don't believe it at this point.

[madprof98]

. . . don't call it a 'made up religion' folks, it's been around longer than 'Christianity', just now in a lighter form . . .

It's just a bunch of new-age drug-induced crap dressed up in the trappings of long-forgotten ancient superstitions. I figured this must have happened in California. I'll bet some of the characters in the story are natives of that crackpot state.

[Shimmer128]

I find it almost impossible to believe that two boys out of an entire room of kids were even noticed to stand up or not stand up.
I'm not kidding.
Either they stood up then and offered the info, or someone pushed to ask them for that info on purpose.

[JasonC]

"No child should have to be told in 2006 that they can't take part in a group because of their religion"

Even if the group is a Catholic seminary, and the religion is sacrificing human captives to the sun god?

People are such flaming morons on this subject. The boy scouts are a private organization that can require whatever they want. And religious belief is not free because it is a matter of indifference and can't possibly matter to anyone, but because it does matter and the state can't be trusted to mess with it. The rest of us are, most emphatically, supposed to care about it.

[Dumb_Ox]

Even lowest-common-denominator civic deism has standards.

[Rumwarthor]

I'm not hateful; I know some wiccans that are awesome people, but the religion sucks.

[JZelle]

Rusty was that old bailiff dude.

[SouthernBoyupNorth]

Can't hold it against the children if thats how they are raised my man. When they get older they can draw their own conclusions.

[metesky]

"They said that we believe in more than one God, but that depends on the branch of Wicca, just like any other religion," Aileen Buchheim said. "We believe in one goddess and god with different names and aspects depending on the time of the year."

Aileen added, "Watch out for the cats, we have 32 of them."

[Paloma_55]

" I see no evidence that the Wiccan kid was "evangelizing"."

So, suppose a Wiccan Spiral Club formed and various Christians started joining. You think the Wiccan's would not be concerned about it? You think they would not be concerned that their kids might be influenced away from Wicca?

The goose and the gander are not being treated the same.

Glad she formed her club. She should have done that in the first place.

[Paloma_55]

---- There's no allegation here that the Wiccan boys had been trying to proselytize other troop members. ----

I say infiltrating a Boy Scout troop with wiccans is, by its nature, trying to proselytize the other troop members.

BSA is a Christian organization. If someone wants to form a wiccan, jewish, islamic or other religiously based group, they are free to do so in this country.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Read the article again. The regional executive director of the Boy Scouts said it's fine for Wiccan boys to be in a Boy Scout troop, and the district superintendent for the church denomination which sponsors the troop overturned the troop leader's decision to kick them out. The only person who wanted the boys out was this "Christian" troop leader, and he only wanted them out because they wouldn't lie about their religion.