When Michael and I got engaged we had to start thinking about what our wedding would be like. As most everyone reading this will know, I’m an atheist and Michael’s agnostic, a traditional church wedding is out of the question. But I’m all about tradition, I love my diamond engagement ring, I want a white dress at my wedding. I just don’t want God.
So in our quest to find some spiritual base, we started looking into pagan groups in our area. Why pagan? Pagan groups tend to encompass many beliefs, and I thought that starting there would be good, maybe we could meet someone we trust and respect enough to marry us.
The results so far? One group Michael has gone to (men’s only night) seems good, we’re following up with it and might join a course with them later this year. Another group in the Delaware Valley seems to have some interesting people in it, and if they hold any good meetings we might check them out. But those groups aren’t what this post is about.
This post is about a semi-local group that we’ve had a bad experience with.
First off, it’s not a purely pagan group. They are all pagans, but there is little discussion about it. Most of what is posted is stupid forwards and plans for trips that friends on the list are taking. I deleted most of what I received, it was fairly useless fluff. They were holding “study groups” every couple of weeks though, and I was interested in one, so I stayed subscribed.
Secondly, some of the members have such horrible grammar and spelling that attempting to read their posts makes me cringe. It’s really that bad. And there is plenty of caps abuse, I felt like I was reading something written by an angry 12 year old.
Now I tried not to hold this against them. There are very smart and enlightened people in the world that have terrible english skills.
I quickly realized they were not part of the smart and enlightened.
About a week ago a very offensively sexual and racist “joke” was forwarded to the list. I’m not easily offended, but this one hit a nerve. First off, I couldn’t believe I was associated with people who would drop that sort of thing in my inbox. Secondly, it’s from a pagan group! A group that is supposed to be inclusive of all people and cultures, accepting of all views (this isn’t just my assessment, they say this on their main page). The “joke” bothered me so much that I mentioned it to Michael, who is also subscribed but hadn’t seen it.
Michael was the one who followed up on it, emailing the poster directly, asking why such a racist joke was sent to a theoretically friendly, public list.
The mail was sent back to the list, and it turned into a flame fest. It turns out that the group is not as accepting as they claim to be. Not only did they defend the woman who posted the joke, they accused everyone who piped up and agreed that it was offensive of being “thin-skinned” and encouraged us to “just delete” things we found offensive.
Just delete it? Clearly these aren’t the kind of people I want to be associated with. I unsubscribed.
Sigh, religion. This is the sort of nonsense that made me a private practicer of spirituality in the first place. Hopefully these other groups we’ve found will prove to me more to my liking.