Just to update readers on a story I mentioned last week, the Pagan community is still livid about the White House “faith-based” czar’s comments in an online chat about tending to the needs of the poor.
To review, Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, participated in a recent online “Ask the White House” Q&A and was asked whether Pagan groups should be eligible for publicly-financed grants.
“I haven’t run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor!” Towey said. “Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can’t be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.”
My biggest concern with Towey’s response was its inherent premise of discrimination and the White House’s aim to support only the “right” religions. How, exactly, will the federal government reasonably determine which faith traditions are, as Towey put it, “fringe”?
Since then, however, Pagans have begun pointing out another problem with Towey’s comments — they’re factually incorrect.
As the Washington Post noted earlier this week, Pagan charities have been caring for the poor for many years, despite Towey’s claim to the contrary.
Outraged pagans have since bombarded the White House and Internet chat rooms with scores of examples of their charitable activity. Particularly common, they say, are food drives in conjunction with Pagan Pride Day celebrations from New York to Wyoming, Arkansas and Nebraska.
In the past three years, Pagan Pride groups have collected 74,000 pounds of food and donated $51,000 to homeless shelters, interfaith food banks, the American Red Cross and other charities, according to the Indianapolis-based International Pagan Pride Project.
In Chicago, pagans support a battered women’s shelter. In Massachusetts, they have given $20,000 for children with AIDS. Towey “obviously doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of the pagan community,” said Fritz Waltjen, 42, of North Hollywood, Calif. “I don’t think the man was being malicious. I think he was just ignorant.”
As retail manager of Raven’s Flight — “the only pagan book and tchotchke shop within a 20-mile radius” — Waltjen is at the center of a West Los Angeles pagan community of about 1,000 people that collects food and personal-care items for the homeless on every one of its eight annual “sabbats,” or holidays.
Obviously, Pagans lack the influence that other, larger religions have. That may not be fair, but I think that’s the political reality. But isn’t it safe to say that if Towey had slighted a more traditional faith group like this, a lot of people would be calling for his resignation?