Meditation 270
Banning Halloween
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The Puyallup School District in Washington has banned Halloween this year.
A spokesman for the District stated:[1]
"Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that."
School District guidelines state:
"Use of derogatory stereotypes is prohibited, such as the traditional image of a witch, which is offensive to members of the Wiccan religion."
Some area Wicca practitioners actually complained, which brought about the ban.
I would suggest to any Wiccan who is offended by little children dressed up as Halloween witches,[2] "Cast a sense of humour spell[3] upon yourself."
I understand that Wiccans want their religion to be taken seriously. But this? It just presents them as a bad joke.
And kids - if you want to dress up as stereotypical apathetic agnostics for Halloween, this year or any year - you will get no complaints from me.
Footnotes:
- As reported on www.komotv.com
- It is not the little ones who dress as ghosts, ghouls, goblins or witches who frighten me, it's the ones disguised as politicians.
- Of course I don't expect such a spell to actually work; but it might have a placebo effect. (And I fully expect complaints that a reference to Wiccans casting spells is another derogatory stereotype.)