John J. Anderson, charged with murder in the strangulation of Natasha Miller, 19, whose nude body was found floating in the Huron River in April, wants his hours-long taped confession thrown out.

And what a strange confession it was. (more…)

New York - Before every dangerous mission in Iraq, Captain Richard A. Briggs Jr. stood on the hatch of his vehicle, drew a pentacle in the sky with his finger and recited the Wiccan Warrior Prayer for protection.

It was a quick, effortless ritual, but one that Briggs was thankful for in the spring of 2003 when his unarmoured cargo truck turned a corner on an Iraqi road and rolled right into machine gun fire. (more…)

Few bureaucrats can subvert a well-intentioned principal like the separation of church and state with the hypocritical bombast of school administrators. But when they actually succeed in making religious fanatics seem rationale, well now that’s an achievement worthy of an OFF/beat Idiot of the Year nomination.

Donna Brewer, of Willow Hill, Pennsylvania, is suing Abington School District, claiming that her 10-year-old son’s “rights to religion and free speech were violated” because he was not allowed to wear a Jesus costume during his school’s Halloween parade. The federal suit was filed on her son’s behalf by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group that believes in spreading the Gospel through “traditional family values.” It further claims that since costumes were mandatory and many students chose to dress as “witches and ghouls” (i.e., pagan costumes), Willow Hill Elementary violated the fourth-grader’s equal protection rights. (more…)

Allentown, PA - There is nothing so evil, so clearly un-American, as the imposition of a particular religious dogma by force.

That is why America’s Founding Fathers made it the first order of business in the Bill of Rights to say that government must not advance ‘’establishment of religion.'’ (more…)

Don Larsen was, by all reports, an excellent Army Chaplain. When he was a Pentecostal Christian, that is. His superior while he was in Iraq, Chaplain Kevin L. McGhee, called Larsen “the best” out of the 26 chaplains he supervised. But then Larsen applied to change his religious affiliation to Wicca, and the Army railroaded him out of Iraq and out of the Army.

The whole sordid story is extensively detailed in a recent article in the Washington Post which (though long) is well worth reading for anyone interested in the subject. (more…)

The night wind pushes Don Larsen’s green robe against his lanky frame. A circle of torches lights his face.

“The old gods are standing near!” calls a retired Army intelligence officer.

“To watch the turning of the year!” replies the wife of a soldier wounded in Iraq.

“What night is this?” calls a former fighter pilot.

“It is the night of Imbolc,” responds Larsen, a former Army chaplain.

Of the 16 self-described witches who have gathered on this Texas plain to celebrate a late-winter pagan festival with dancing, chanting, chili and beer, all but two are current or former military personnel. Each has a story. None can compete with Larsen’s. (more…)

Sioux Falls, SD - An inmate serving life in prison for a torture murder that sent two co-defendants to death row wants a federal judge to approve a toy sword and other items and privileges for the practice of an ancient European religion.

Darrell Hoadley, of Lead, who was convicted of murder for his part in the 2000 slaying of Chester Allan Poage near Spearfish, filed the handwritten complaint in U.S. District Court. He lists himself in court documents as counsel elder of the Asatru religious group. (more…)

Belchertown, MA - In 1972, carpenter, farmer, poet and political activist Eric L. Walgren, known at the time as “Eric the Rat,” transferred ownership of his house at 140 Gulf Road here to the Universal Life Church of Belchertown, a pagan church he had founded two years earlier.

Religion or tax dodge? (more…)

Judge Elena Simionescu was accused of being a witch and of creating an atmosphere of conflict during her term as a president of the court in Vatra Dornei, a small town in eastern Romania.

She was alleged to have performed rituals involving splashing water, mud and “other liquids”, as well as salt and pepper, on fellow judges’ desks in what some saw as an attempt to bewitch them. The case raises unsettling questions about the outlook of some within the judicial system of one of the newest members of the European Union. (more…)

Dover, DE - A Superior Court judge has upheld a religious discrimination finding that requires Boscov’s to pay a $5,000 fine and $21,000 to two Christians, two Wiccans and a pagan.

In May, the state Human Relations Commission found that the Reading, Pa.-based department store chain caved in to pressure from church people and illegally dropped classes the complainants planned to teach in October 2005 at the Campus of Classes at the Dover store. (more…)