- by Jehana Silverwing -

"Religion is a unique force in society. It promotes both good and evil. Historically, it has helped to abolish slavery. It has promoted racial integration, equal rights for women, and equal rights for gays and lesbians. It has motivated individuals to create massive support services for the poor, the sick, the hurting, and the broken. Conversely, it has been used to justify slavery, racial segregation, oppression of women, discrimination against homosexuals, genocide, extermination of minorities, and other horrendous evils."
~~ Religious Tolerance.org ~~

"Religious tolerance is not religious indifference. Tolerance means to value the right of another person to hold beliefs that you know are absolutely wrong."
~~ Anonymous ~~

There was a time, years ago, when I believed that Polytheism was a key towards being tolerant of other religions, that by being Polytheistic or even Pantheistic, one had an extra leg up on the ability to be tolerant. After all, if one worshipped multiple divinities, what was one more belief, even if it wasn't one you yourself shared? Nowadays, I don't think it is so simple.

A couple years ago I remember reading a Green Egg article about an Easter sunrise service for Christians, performed out of doors somewhere in California, I think. A busload of Pagans came to disrupt it. "Why weren't we invited?" they exclaimed. "Stop picking on us!" Self-righteously, they destroyed that ceremony, in a way most of the rest of us hate when it happens to us. Why on Earth did these self-appointed selfish guardians of their own egos feel the need to do this? The majority of Christians present at this event had no knowledge whatsoever of Paganism until then -- you can imagine what most of these think of us now, and I don't blame them a bit.

I am informed by a reliable source that one Pagan on at least one of the Usenet newsgroups has been loudly proclaiming that one can't be a true Pagan if one doesn't hate Christians. Another incident to remind me why I don't bother with newsgroups anymore.

There's a website out there run by at least one Celtic Druidic type who has "Declared War" on Celtic Wiccans, for cultural misappropriation. Never mind the fact that I don't see much in the way of Celtic erudition at his site to balance out the mis-education he's claiming to be in holy jihad against.

And I won't even go into the frequent hailfire between some Traditional branches of Witchcraft vs. the more eclectic Witches (especially those who are sort of close to their own tradition in practice, or who branched off from them), or some of the eclectics vs. the Traditionals, who think the latter are too much hidebound sticks-in-the-mud who may have well remained Christian (or something). The letters column in Green Egg is often especially "enlightening" in this regard.

And it becomes so easy to see discrimination in everything -- Blair Witch Project; etc. I even remember one Witch who was let go from hir job, who claimed religious discrimination, although I really strongly suspect in this case that it was a personality problem that wouldn't quit. Rather than dealing with hirself, this person had a ready-made external to blame.

Okay, so let's face it: we've got intolerant elements in our own ranks. Big surprise.

There are a couple factors at work here:

The squeaky wheel gets the attention.
And the Internet, for all of its benefits, magnifies that attention, whether deserved or undeserved. One bad apple goes a long way towards spoiling a whole bunch, and everyone remembers the bad apple whilst all the tasty apples sort of get lost in the wallpaper. Unfortunately, a lot of people want attention, for whatever reasons...
This is true for all religions, for all causes.

It's a personality thing.
Certain personality types are attracted towards making certain kinds of statements; of wanting to make the whole world over in view of their own ideas/ideals; they see the world as an antagonistic place, with few if any nuances of grey or rainbow. In common parlance, this is thought of as "control issues". This behavior is part of a personality flaw (as I see it), and can be found in any religion, including the religion of Atheism, as well as Christianity or any form of Paganism, polytheistic or otherwise.

Now, I've heard it claimed that sometimes we Pagans can be worse than Christians -- I mark this as hyperbole -- our "neo" Pagan folks have yet to kill anyone over their contrary beliefs -- but this is almost damnation with faint praise.

"When the dust settles and the pages of history are written, it will not be the angry defenders of intolerance who have made the difference. The reward will go to those who dared to step outside the safety of their privacy in order to expose and rout the prevailing prejudices."
~~ John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop ~~

So, what can we do about promoting tolerance?

Re-affirm and re-aquaint ourselves with the customs of civility.
Treat people as people, as fellow souls and voyagers on this planet, and respect them, for in so doing you also respect yourself. In other words, to crib an idea from some other religion, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Don't be so quick to rush into judgement.
Save your battles for the serious, not the trivial. I don't really give a rat's behind that Nike uses references to Goddesses in their advertising, or that Witches at Halloween are depicted as wattle-nosed crones. (I've got a straw one hanging out on my porch all seasons, as a matter of fact.) Granted, when one is used to being part of the "underdog culture", as it were, the perception of slights magnifies. The hard fact of it is that sometimes the perceptions are true -- but we have to be able to act on them more responsibly, not as if we were whipped and abused curs ready to snap. We can choose how to respond. And, considering how the Internet can turn so much into an extended game of Telephone, get the facts before flying off the handle about something that's happened second or third hand.

Learn to speak and write with qualifiers.
Instead of "Christians are...", say "some (but not all) Christians are..." -- substitute in the appropriate label for Christian, depending on context. Sure, this advice flies against the face of our "sound-bite society", but flying against the face of that is an Honor. Sure, it takes some of the punch out of our speech and writing to modify our definitives in opinion to that extent, but, well, be tough in adhering to this concept. You are NOT a wimp if you qualify things and are careful in your speech. I repeat, you are NOT a wimp. You are NOT a wimp. (There. Three times. Magic.)

Make a study of beliefs you dislike.
Or, perhaps you now dislike a belief you were raised in -- figure out if your current attitudes towards it are colored by the foibles and the nastinesses of the people around you who believed in it at that time. See if at least on some level you can separate the ideal behind the belief out from the flawed people who carried on that belief to you. The end result isn't likely to be a re-conversion to your earlier faith, but it could help you come to terms with your attitudes towards it.

Remember that "reverse prejudice" is still prejudice.
It was fashionable a few years ago for some members of minorities to claim that acts they perpetrated against others were not, say, racist or sexist, when the same act committed against them was indeed racist or sexist. Having spent a few years as one of two northern European whites in a class of students of Hispanic ancestry, being "different" in the classroom isn't made better by being overall part of a national majority. When you are stuck in such a situation, you really aren't thinking about the alleged big picture.

Cultivate Interfaith and religious tolerance opportunities.
We gotta hang together. The response to a Bob Barr or a Pat Robertson is not to rampage out against Christians, but rather to band together with those many folks of non-Pagan faiths who wish to cultivate concepts and ideals of religious freedoms. The response should not be to allow ourselves to take routes that we would not like other religions to take -- if prayer should not be pushed in schools on school time, then neither should our activities. A coherence and consistency of thought and action is required by ethical principles here. When we can help others out, we should take steps to do so, as well. Even Fundamentalist Christians can often be our friends -- I am reminded of one person back in the late '80's who approached fellow members of CompuServe's Religion Forum to discuss our belief systems. Granted, he honestly believed we should all become something akin to his style of Christian, but he really wanted to understand our world view. After the initial suspicions were slowly eliminated (there was, after all, a fair bit of attempted proselytizing happening on a service that wasn't exactly inexpensive), one or two of us conversed with him, and came from the experience with something of a broadening of view. Neither of us tried to convert the other; this was done with a goal of communicating world-views and perspectives, and is an experience I'm glad I've had, and I honor that man.

Cultivate stereotype-breaking experiences and incidences.
Think about the exceptions to "the rules". Distinguish between statistical tendencies of any class of people and their individual actualities. As a rule, women are shorter than men. However, I'm taller than most men I know. More specifically: Remember the OJ case? Yes, I want to forget it, too, but there's one aspect I was witness to that I remember well. The day the verdict was announced, the last person I talked to before the verdict was a black man, and the first person I ended up talking to after the verdict was announced was a white woman. Guess what? Their own personal opinions broke the stereotypic predictions one might make. I value that.

Challenge your brain.
Cultivate new skills and interests. Learn a language, listen to new music. Take up a new hobby or interest which challenges the mind (and ultimately, the spirit). It's merely a hypothesis on my part, but I suspect that many of those folks who allow themselves to grow more narrowly-focused as they age lose some of their resiliency -- new ideas may become simply less appealing, and possibly even threatening. (And some of those new ideas may well prove to be unpalatable anyway, but having the resiliency not to dismiss them out of hand may well be a plus.)

Remember that a lot of good responses are indeed happening.
They don't always make the press, or make for good sound bites, but there's a lot of good work many Pagans and others are doing towards issues of religious tolerance. I particularly support the work done by The Witch's Voice in this regard, but they are certainly not alone.

"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists,
and I did not speak up, for I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak up, for I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak up, for I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak up, for I was a Protestant.
And then they came for me,
and by that time, no one was left to speak up."
~~ Martin Niemoller ~~