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United States: A Washington State school district has cancelled Hallowe'en celebrations in case the festival is offensive to Wiccans.
The district said Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.
Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that,Hansen said.
The Wiccan, or Pagan, religion is said to be growing in the United States and there are Wiccan groups in Puyallup.
On the district's list of guidelines related to holidays and celebrations is an item that reads:Use of derogatory stereotypes is prohibited, such as the traditional image of a witch, which is offensive to members of the Wiccan religion.
School Says Halloween Disrespectful to Witches—abc News, 21st October 2004.
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Church and State
and Hallowe'en
at 20:51. Last modified on October 09 2007 at 17:25.
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Comments
1: Posted by: aeduna | October 22, 2004 12:27 AM
errrrrrrrrr. Either someone has been taking themselves way too seriously and complaining, or someone has gone way too compassionately insane, or its an excuse.... with a 5% chance that someone is playing silly buggers and has made some sort of "if you don't want to do X because of that religious group, then you can't have witches at halloween" and been called on their bluff.
Bizarre either way :)
2: Posted by: jean | October 22, 2004 12:41 AM
I would not feel bad about kids dressing up as witches. I often explain to some kids that witches ARE beautiful and my granddaughter has her 'beautiful witch' costume. Did anyone ask witches if they were offended.
3: Posted by: birch | October 22, 2004 8:36 PM
Quite right, I find it extremely upsetting. It really makes me angry that the church have done so much damage, and the lies are still being perpetuated. But then I'm married to a xtian so I just put up with it :-)
xxx
b
4: Posted by: Feòrag | October 25, 2004 9:14 PM
I figure if someone calls themselves a 'witch', then they just have to deal with the fact that they've appropriated a word with lots of negative connotations.
5: Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge | October 28, 2004 12:47 PM
I watched the Fox News channel news report on this and it was freaking hilarious. They actually went out and talked to the local coven. Not one of them was offended and they all thought the PC idiots were completely mad.
"Projection" feeling offended has always wound me up. Its rediculous when someone tells someone else that they should be offended by something.
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