A plea for Religious Tolerance-

an Open Letter to the Lancaster Sheriff's Station and the Religious Community.

Imagine going to a church picnic, or to your church, and before your service begins, a number of non church members appear, with portable stereos, blaring their religious message, and march around your gathering,) disrupting your worship service. Outrageous? Maybe so, but it happened Saturday, March 16 in the Antelope Valley town of Lancaster, California. A group of peaceful Wiccans and Pagans were re-dedicating a local store, the Witches Brew, with a new name, The Witches Grove. We were joined simply to celebrate the Spring and to have a re-naming ceremony and instead were harassed by some people in the name of Christianity.

Several car loads of people sat in their vehicles quietly watching. They were welcome. One particular family of three, a man, woman and small infant, in a large SUV, chose to turn up Christian Rock music on their auto sound system as loudly as they possibly could, with their windows rolled down, to disrupt a quiet service attended by about 50 Pagans and Wiccans. When politely asked to turn down their music and please respect us, we were told that it was a public parking lot, and they were entitled to be there.

More disconcerting was the fact that they had a young infant in a backwards-facing car seat, with a bottle propped in its mouth, SUV windows rolled down on a very cold and windy day, the music loud enough to endanger their child's hearing. Several men from the vehicles walked counterclockwise around our worship circle praying loudly from their Bibles. While we thank them for contributing the energy of their prayers to our circle we would like the peace to worship in our own faith without interruption.

Even more disappointing was that despite a telephoned appeal for assistance no response was forthcoming from the Lancaster Sheriff's Station. The behavior of these individuals protesting, qualifies as a hate incident, if not a hate crime, by the standards listed on the LA County Sheriff's web page. [Ed. comment: we have since learned that the call the the Sheriff's Station did not clearly identify the protestors as committing a hate crime, nor were the police made aware we were having a religious gathering, due to fear on the part of the caller, that they would not come if told we were witches. ]

Have we, as a nation, as a state, as a city forgotten so soon the lesson of 9-11, which was carried out as an act of religious intolerance? We, as witches and Pagans do not come into others' places of worship and attempt to disrupt services. Under our belief system and path to the Divine this would be beyond unacceptable to us. We believe, as declared by the Parliament of World Religions; "Every people, every race, every religion must show tolerance and respect, indeed high appreciation - for every other." and "When they [representatives of religion] stir up prejudice, hatred and enmity towards those of different belief, or even incite or legitimize religious wars, they deserve the condemnation of humankind and the loss of their adherents." All we ask is to be granted the peace and respect that we show for other faiths.

Lisa Morgenstern