-Caveat Lector- http://www.newmassmedia.com/nac.phtml?code=wma&db=nac_fea&ref=14912 Bush's 'Witch' Hunt Tucker Carlson, the pompous co-host of CNN's The Spin Room was riffing the other night on where Pagans and other non-mainstream religions fit into George W. Bush's initiative to allow the federal government to fund religious social service programs. A viewer e-mailed the question: "Please forward the location of the nearest Wiccan-sponsored hospital." Carlson responded: "You have to sacrifice a chicken to get in" to the appreciative chuckles of his co-host, Bill Press. But Druid Priestess Ellen Evert Hopman of the Order of the Whiteoak isn't laughing. Hopman and other pagans are deeply troubled by President George Bush's toils to increase the role of the federal government in faith-based social service programs through so-called "charitable choice" legislation. Believers in earth-based faiths follow the religious freedom debate with, well, religious fervor. As the philosophical progeny of men and women who were burned alive, drowned in Massachusetts bogs and ponds and tortured in various sick ways centuries ago simply for eschewing the dominant faith, Christianity, they've got a big stake in the debate over Bush's bold salvo against the constitutional separation of church and state. If Bush's plan gets congressional backing, it can't be long, as far as Hopman's concerned, before the bureaucrats administering "charitable choice" programs start determining which religions are "legitimate" and cleared for government funding and which need not apply. Pagans, Hopman said, are already at the top of that list. "If you follow the debate in the news what you hear is that within the religious groups there seems to be a hierarchy of who is 'deserving,'" Hopman said. "The Nation of Islam and Wiccans seem to be surfacing as the scapegoats." Bush's "charitable choice" initiative is tied to several bills that have been introduced in Congress in the last few years and are now pending. In the debates last year the architect of one leading bill stated clearly that pagans would not be welcome at the federal faith-based initiative trough. Last April, during debates on a U.S. Rep. Mark Souder's charitable choice bill, Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat, asked Souder point-blank if Wiccans could apply for federal funds to provide social services, according to a transcript printed in the April 6, 2000 Congressional Record. Souder, a self-proclaimed champion of making faith-based organizations eligible to receive federal grants to help address "cultural problems," replied, "It is unlikely under President Bush that the witches would get funding." And President Bush has also spoken his heart on the matter of Pagans' religious worth, albeit in his characteristically confused manner. In response to the Pentagon's official position that Paganism should get the same treatment in the ranks as any other religion, Bush told ABC's Good Morning America in 1999 that he doesn't think "witchcraft" is a religion. "We aren't just a little splinter group," Hopman said. "We're very concerned about this and we're organizing." -- JoAnn DiLorenzo <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
