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badstarPaper: Sunday News (LANCASTER, PA.)
Pagans picnic, much to commissioner's chagrin Date: 09/08/02 By: Helen
Colwell Adams
"We're just normal folks, and we do normal things," Azar Silverbear was saying Saturday.
He was standing near the tables offering door prize tickets and information about the Green Party and the Alliance for Tolerance and Freedom, both of which were represented at the "Lancaster Pagan Pride" picnic in Lancaster County Park.
Sponsored by the Maplewing Clan of the International Pagan Pride Project, the second annual picnic was expected to draw around 300 people from Lancaster and neighboring counties to the park for food, children's activities, live music and a little education. Which is not to say everyone was happy about it. County Commissioner Pete Shaub, for one, expressed frustration that the county had to allow the group to use the park. "I don't think it is right that we are required to rent a facility to a group that promotes witchcraft," he said. "I don't think our founding fathers had renting public facilities to witchcraft groups in mind when they made up the laws." Plus, he said, the permit application didn't mention the pagan connection, although Commissioner Chairman Paul Thibault noted that subsequent publicity about the picnic spelled out the focus on witchcraft, druidism and other "earth-based spiritualities," as the group put it. County solicitor John Espenshade said the courts have been clear that governments must use "content-neutral criteria" in determining who may use public places.
Unless a group's views make officials fear "an imminent breach of the peace," Espenshade said, governments can't deny permits "because someone
doesn't believe in someone else's views."
Silverbear, who was organizing the picnic, said his group didn't know anything about the controversy.
Last year's picnic -- overshadowed by a threatened Ku Klux Klan rally the same day -- went off without a hitch, he said. The clan donated a tree to the park.
The public was invited to the afternoon-long picnic, which included merchants selling clothes, jewelry, pottery and related products. Admission was a can of food to be donated to a local food bank. "The event is to dispel the myths about paganism and witchcraft," Silverbear said.
"As long as people obey the rules of the park," Commissioner Ron Ford said Friday, "that's part of what living in a diverse society is all about.
"There are a lot of things you don't personally agree with, but you do have the First Amendment."
Or, as Thibault put it: "It's a free country." Shaub wasn't convinced.
"If it were just me making the call," he said, "I would not rent the facility to them."
Copyright © 2001 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Pagans picnic, much to commissioner's chagrin Date: 09/08/02 By: Helen
Colwell Adams
"We're just normal folks, and we do normal things," Azar Silverbear was saying Saturday.
He was standing near the tables offering door prize tickets and information about the Green Party and the Alliance for Tolerance and Freedom, both of which were represented at the "Lancaster Pagan Pride" picnic in Lancaster County Park.
Sponsored by the Maplewing Clan of the International Pagan Pride Project, the second annual picnic was expected to draw around 300 people from Lancaster and neighboring counties to the park for food, children's activities, live music and a little education. Which is not to say everyone was happy about it. County Commissioner Pete Shaub, for one, expressed frustration that the county had to allow the group to use the park. "I don't think it is right that we are required to rent a facility to a group that promotes witchcraft," he said. "I don't think our founding fathers had renting public facilities to witchcraft groups in mind when they made up the laws." Plus, he said, the permit application didn't mention the pagan connection, although Commissioner Chairman Paul Thibault noted that subsequent publicity about the picnic spelled out the focus on witchcraft, druidism and other "earth-based spiritualities," as the group put it. County solicitor John Espenshade said the courts have been clear that governments must use "content-neutral criteria" in determining who may use public places.
Unless a group's views make officials fear "an imminent breach of the peace," Espenshade said, governments can't deny permits "because someone
doesn't believe in someone else's views."
Silverbear, who was organizing the picnic, said his group didn't know anything about the controversy.
Last year's picnic -- overshadowed by a threatened Ku Klux Klan rally the same day -- went off without a hitch, he said. The clan donated a tree to the park.
The public was invited to the afternoon-long picnic, which included merchants selling clothes, jewelry, pottery and related products. Admission was a can of food to be donated to a local food bank. "The event is to dispel the myths about paganism and witchcraft," Silverbear said.
"As long as people obey the rules of the park," Commissioner Ron Ford said Friday, "that's part of what living in a diverse society is all about.
"There are a lot of things you don't personally agree with, but you do have the First Amendment."
Or, as Thibault put it: "It's a free country." Shaub wasn't convinced.
"If it were just me making the call," he said, "I would not rent the facility to them."
Copyright © 2001 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. All Rights Reserved
