mirror to the moon

Pagan mom challenges Bible giveaway

atheistme:

A pagan mother’s challenge to the distribution of donated Bibles at a local school has prompted the Buncombe County Board of Education to reevaluate its policies regarding religious texts.

Ginger Strivelli, who practices Witchcraft, a form of Paganism, said she was upset when her 12-year-old son [who did not wish to be photographed for this article] came home from North Windy Ridge intermediate school with a Bible.

The Gideons International had delivered several boxes of the sacred books to the school office. The staff allowed interested students to stop by and pick them up.

“Schools should not be giving out one religion’s materials and not others,” Strivelli said. According to Strivelli, the principal assured her the school would make available religious texts donated by any group. But when Strivelli showed up at the school with pagan spell books, she was turned away.

“You can either open your public school up to all religious material, or you can say no religious material,” Michael Broyde, a professor and senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion said. “You can’t say, ‘You can distribute religious material, but only from the good mainstream faiths.’

Good for her. Seriously. I’m glad someone decided to call their bluff. 

In all honesty, I’m fine with religions being taught in school. Religions are interesting! I love learning about them. But in a public school setting, you can’t treat christianity like it’s the only religion, or “the” religion. Encourage learning and exploration, not indoctrination. Please. 

I was under the impression that public schools weren’t allowed to distribute religious texts at all? That’s the whole PUBLIC aspect. Christianity can be 100x more harmful than witchcraft. I’d like to see them pass out the Dhammapada or the Koran.