Should Pagans organize to protect themselves from hate speech?

[Kcnorwood]

Originally Posted by MoonWater

I admire your passion knorwood, I'm afraid I just don't see things being bad enough for me to share it.

So we should wait untill they are bad? That makes no sence why wait? By the time it's bad enough as you say it might just be too late..I see no point in waiting my wife & I hope to raise our kids in a more tolerant world against Pagans then it is now, & the only way to do that is to stand up & speak up. It might not ever be perfect but perhaps we can at least try to make it better.

[Zephyr]

Originally Posted by Kcnorwood

So we should wait untill they are bad? That makes no sence why wait? By the time it's bad enough as you say it might just be too late..I see no point in waiting my wife & I hope to raise our kids in a more tolerant world against Pagans then it is now, & the only way to do that is to stand up & speak up. It might not ever be perfect but perhaps we can at least try to make it better.

Just gonna say, good luck trying to organize pagans. It just can't be done. If this pagan discrimination (Which I have never seen outside of some stupid fundy websites) is so bad in the south, why not just jump ship? The weather up here's better anyways.

[Kcnorwood]

Originally Posted by Zephyr

Just gonna say, good luck trying to organize pagans. It just can't be done. If this pagan discrimination (Which I have never seen outside of some stupid fundy websites) is so bad in the south, why not just jump ship? The weather up here's better anyways.

Who says you can not organize Pagans better yet why not? Different denomations of Christians come together when someone or some group verbally attacks them, Same can be said for the Jewish community & they fight all the time over scripture.
It's not just here in the south granted it happens more here but that's no reason to stop caring. I for one will keep up the fight & so will the group I belong too. I think it's important to do so. Pagans of the past have already suffered enough lets hope history doesn't repeat it's self again like it has before.

[Zephyr]

Originally Posted by Kcnorwood

Who says you can not organize Pagans better yet why not? Different denomations of Christians come together when someone or some group verbally attacks them, Same can be said for the Jewish community & they fight all the time over scripture.
It's not just here in the south granted it happens more here but that's no reason to stop caring. I for one will keep up the fight & so will the group I belong too. I think it's important to do so. Pagans of the past have already suffered enough lets hope history doesn't repeat it's self again like it has before.

You could theoretically organize pagans, with some limitations. For instance, I could get a bunch of other Heathens to team up with me, and possibly some other sorts of recons too, but good luck getting recons and eclectics or wiccans on the same page. While I know many pagans like to see us all as similar as different Christian groups, with the schism between recons and neopagans, we might as well be entirely different religions.

So I'll give you, you could probably get some other neopagans on your side, but against what? Is there seriously that much hostility towards pagans down there? From my experience, Pagans have build up way too much of a persecution complex. Let's face it, we have a reputation for being really whiny and making mountains out of molehills. Do we really want that to continue?

[Kcnorwood]

Originally Posted by Zephyr

You could theoretically organize pagans, with some limitations. For instance, I could get a bunch of other Heathens to team up with me, and possibly some other sorts of recons too, but good luck getting recons and eclectics or wiccans on the same page. While I know many pagans like to see us all as similar as different Christian groups, with the schism between recons and neopagans, we might as well be entirely different religions.

So I'll give you, you could probably get some other neopagans on your side, but against what? Is there seriously that much hostility towards pagans down there? From my experience, Pagans have build up way too much of a persecution complex. Let's face it, we have a reputation for being really whiny and making mountains out of molehills. Do we really want that to continue?

We,ve had no problem in our area getting different Pagans together not yet any ways. It's not so much the hostility I'm talking about sure it's every where but I'm also talking about edcuating people aout Pagans in general. If people believe that something is right then they should be able to put aside thier differences correct?
But they have to want to no one can force them to do it. I've never heard myself that Pagans were whiny but I guess if were to be called whiny so then should the women who wanted equal rights or the blacks looking to be accepted.

[Riverwolf]

I agree that we need to educate more on Paganism as much as we do on other religions, but "Paganism" isn't a single religion of many branches like Christianity is. It's just a term given to people who don't follow any of the "major" religions. There's hundreds of different religions that are nothing alike in any way that could all be considered "Pagan."

Pagans only have problems in local areas that are governed societally by Christians; it hasn't reached a state or federal level yet. At the same time, African-Americans and homosexuals are having the same thing. Now, I'm sure that when this whole homosexual rights thing gets settled down, then we can start worrying about pagans. But if we fire the first round, I guarantee that we will be demonized by the media and will eventually have it worse than homosexuals do.