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A book review: Book of Shadows by Phyllis Curott Examiner.com President Emerita of the oldest and largest international religious organization in the tradition of Wicca, High Priestess Phyllis Curott takes us on a ... and more »

BILL MCCLELLAN: Close quarters, lack of prospects confine three ex ... SuburbanJournals Wicca is a neopagan, nature-centered religion. Carson said he is also bisexual, but his faith is Odinic Rite, which he said is in the Norse tradition. ... and more »

BILL MCCLELLAN: Close quarters, lack of prospects confine three ex ... SuburbanJournals A bisexual Wiccan, he said. Wicca is a neopagan, nature-centered religion. Carson said he is also bisexual, but his faith is Odinic Rite, which he said is ... and more »

FIRST PUBLISHED MARCH 13, 2009 Adam Derby is 27 years old but looks younger. He's on the hefty side and has long blond hair. When I visited him Wednesday afternoon at his apartment on the city's north side, he reminded me of a young man just out of college and on his own for the first time.

Full moon magic for July Examiner.com ... see the Denver Wicca Examiner's article http://www.examiner.com/x-10755-Denver-Wicca-Examiner~y2009m6d26-A-little-bit-of-magic-for-rainy-afternoons. ... and more »

We've talked periodically about little Adriel Arocha, a Native American kindergartener in Texas. Adriel wanted to keep his hair long, because his family says it's part of their spiritual beliefs. Although the school segregated him for most of the kindergarten year and had him taught in an In-School Suspension setting (yeah, in kindergarten!), back in January a Federal judge ruled that administrators could not force him to cut his hair.

Now, the Needville Independent School District has filed an appeal on the case, saying that the "judge’s ruling “hijacked” the district’s authority to “regulate its population.” Superintendant Curtis Rhodes believes Adriel's father, Kenney Arocha, has worn his hair long for more than a decade because of “personal choice” rather than religious conviction. Apparently, during the January hearings, Rhodes complained that Arocha was "unable to provide him with "written evidence of their beliefs, a religion that could be researched or a tribal affiliation.”

Um, hello? Since when do all religious belief systems even have written evidence of anything? The family is Native American. They don't have a great big book o' rules like the Big Three, and the problem is that Rhodes and his supporters are viewing all spiritual paths through the Dominant Religion Lens. The judge in the case, Keith Ellision, ruled that it didn't matter if there was written evidence of the belief system existing, but that what was key was that "Plaintiff Arocha is only required to show that he himself has these ‘deeply held religious beliefs,’ which he has done."

Now the school district has filed an appeal arguing that Arocha's hair length is not a matter of spiritual belief at all, but of personal choice. The appeal claims that Ellision "erred in ruling the application of the Needville ISD’s grooming code violated Adriel’s freedom of religious exercise and freedom of speech."

So here's the big question. Are one's religious beliefs no longer valid if they cannot be documented under public scrutiny? Who gets to decide whether a religion is a valid one or not? In modern Paganism, we have many people who follow an eclectic blend of spiritual traditions. Many others follow a family-based system. Even among those who claim the same "label," there is still a lot of room for wiggling - not all Wiccans agree on every principle, nor every Druid or Asatruar. For many of us, the only documentation is what we ourselves have compiled. In the case of the Arocha family, does it matter that there is no specific documentation of their Native American beliefs, as long as they believe those things to be sacred? It's clear that Curtis Rhodes thinks he's entitled to make the call, so I'll be interested to see if a Federal appeals court agrees with him.

And really, how culturally insensitive is it to use the phrase "regulate our population" when referring to someone who's part of a minority group?

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Following a gay pride weekend marked by hate-motivated violence, advocates in New York City planned a press conference on Wednesday morning to discuss a new report showing increased severity of crimes against LGBT people in 2008, despite a 12% fall in the overall number of crimes in the city.

Design talk with Steve Kelsey: The problem with Defra's Packaging ... packagingnews.co.uk Every Summer's Solstice the Wicca gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the longest day of the year. It's all fairly harmless stuff, a few silly costumes and a ... and more »

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The effects discrimination has had on religion in the Mid-South Examiner.com From the known split of Christianity from Judaism to the Reformation to the founding of COGIC and Dianic Wicca, people have long sought the freedom to ... and more »