Tarot Legalized in Virginia Prisons

You too can be an Advocate for Change

By Lady Passion, High Priestess, Coven Oldenwilde,
Asheville, NC

Published August, 2007, in Oracle 20/20 Magazine

Cont'd from previous page ...

Start nice, then bombard your target with the tenacity of a feral Celt. Don't confine your complaint to one person and hope for the best: Contact every person in any conceivable position to help you, any who may be responsible, and those who are working to resolve similar problems.

Advocacy groups abound on the Internet, and it is easy to find others who are or have battled similar issues, such as the Department of Justice's First Freedoms Project and the ACLU. E-mail them frequently to cultivate them in case you need their help filing legal briefs later.

Most bigots initially respond with dismissal: There's no such problem or there's a policy in place that actually supports the bigotry — so there's nothing you can do about it. This is simply their opening gambit, so disregard this rebuff.

Long delays and excuses quickly follow. Persist through this tactic, repeating the facts of the case and your demands over and over if necessary. This part of the battle represents the bigot's hope that if they ignore you, perhaps you'll just go away. Pray for strength and re-double your efforts: Produce legal precedents supporting your position and supply specific ways they can satisfy you. They won't admit it, but they're desperate for a face-saving way out of the mess, so give them one.

By now you've built up a dossier of your attempts to alleviate the difficulty, which will serve you well if you end up having to go to the last resort — lawsuit.

The truth is, it rarely comes to that. Relentlessness pays off, and most bigots fold like pup tents when confronted with legal precedents like RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) and Cutter v. Wilson, etc. And when they fold, it makes you bloom like a flower!

Publicizing religious wins is an important part of the process, as it inspires others to work for spiritual equality, and shows the true progress Pagans and Wiccans are making nationwide.

This is when having finesse writing lucid press releases proving the story's news hook is most crucial. Avoid making the PR all about you; rather, focus on the issue itself, how widespread the problem is, and why it qualifies as unfair, irrational, or illegal. Cite the Amendments or common law that it violated and educate the reader on the positive implications of the new ruling.

The upshot of spiritual activism is the delicious thrill of understanding what They hope you don't: that one person can make not only a difference in their lifetime, but many.

About the Author: Lady Passion is co-author of The Goodly Spellbook: Olde Spells for Modern Problems (Sterling, 2005). She has been High Priestess of Coven Oldenwilde, a 501(c)(3) religious nonprofit in Asheville, NC since 1994. She may be contacted via: www.oldenwilde.org