Pagans to Rally for Religious Rights

In Front of the White House on July 4th

Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United to Speak

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC, June 21, 2007

A group of Pagan religious leaders from diverse denominations will gather in Lafayette Square Park on the Fourth of July to advocate for a Pagan military chaplain, request more approved Pagan religious symbols from the Department of Veterans Affairs and call for universal freedom of religious expression.

Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State will also address the crowd. “Until Pagans have the same rights as Presbyterians and Pentecostals, religious liberty is not safe in America. The Framers of our Constitution mandated no preference for any one religion over another or for all religion over secularist beliefs.”

Earlier this spring, attorneys from Americans United facilitated a settlement with DOJ lawyers representing the Department of Veterans Affairs to end a ten-year struggle over displaying the Wiccan Pentacle on veterans’ memorial markers and plaques. Rev. Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary, plaintiff of the federal religious
discrimination lawsuit which settled the case, says “The Veteran Pentacle Quest victory has demonstrated the power Pagans can have when we work together, and with those of other paths, to uphold religious freedom. United we stand. United we win!”

Currently there are no Pagan chaplains in the U.S. Armed Forces, although other minority religions with similar, or fewer, numbers of devotees in the military have one or more chaplains. Rev. Michael Akins of the Military Pagan Network, a retired Army Chaplain Assistant, will talk about the need for a Pagan chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. He says: “Certainly those who protect the freedoms of all of us deserve freedom of religion for themselves.”

Rev. Marcia Drewry of Sacred Well Congregation will speak about leading the first Wiccan Open Circle in Iraq in 2003, and her years of leadership here at home. Rev. Drewry currently leads the Tidewater Open Circle in southern Virginia. She says, “A lay leader is unable to fully minister to the military Pagan community due to regulatory restrictions. So our military members do not have equality of religious rights currently."

Other speakers will outline the next steps in obtaining freedom of religious expression for all Pagan denominations. Steve McNallen of the Asatru Folk Assembly will speak about Thor’s Hammer: “Modern-day Asatru has a very high percentage of veterans. We've worn the hammer amulet into combat. It's only right that the same symbol be on our headstones.”

Rev. Skip Ellison, Archdruid of Ar nDraoicht Fein, will speak about the Druids’ Awen symbol. He says “It is important to remember that freedom of religion means freedom for all religions to worship as they choose.”

And acclaimed author and Pagan Elder Diana L. Paxson will lead the first public Pagan ritual performed outside the White House.

Paxson’s ritual will invoke the Founders of our Nation: “We will honor those who established our fundamental freedoms, especially Washington and Jefferson, and those who built on their ideas, such as Lincoln and FDR, offering our energies to preserve the liberties they fought for and the land they loved. We offer our will to carry on the work of our Founding Fathers and Mothers, to help America become what they hoped it would be.”

Immediately following the ritual, Mz. imani, shaman of the drum, will lead a Spirit Drum Circle lasting until 5pm.

Chesapeake Pagan Community is sponsoring this event in collaboration with Caroline Kenner, a Pagan shamanic healer and Washington Witchdoctor.

For more information, call Caroline at 301-412-1760, or go to www.paganreligiousrights.org or email mythkenner@aol.com

We need to have cleaned up and be off site by 5pm on the Fourth of July.

After the rally is over, many of us will be meeting at Mandalay, a Burmese restaurant in downtown Silver Spring, as we did last year.
For those of you coming down from the north, I would like to suggest that you park your cars at the Silver Spring metro stop. That way, it will be extremely easy for you to join us at Mandalay if you wish.
Mandalay has its own website at
www.mandalayrestaurantcafe.com, and is located at 930 Bonifant St., Silver Spring, MD 20910-4514 Tel.: (301) 585-0500

We are planning to have driving directions to Mandalay available at the rally as well as walking directions from the Silver Spring metro. It is about a 5 minute walk from the metro stop.

Mandalay will add an 18% gratuity to your check as they consider us one party. This policy engendered some resentment last year, so I wanted to disclose it up front this year.

If you get lost, call the restaurant at the number above and ask for me, they know me well.

The press release has been disseminated widely including abroad.

A Pagan group in Canandaigua, NY will be performing Diana's ritual at roughly the same time on their County Courthouse steps.