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I was gogin through some of links in the link section lookign for stories like I usialy do (Funny, I hate workign my self into a flurry, but thats the exact reason I look for those stories.) When I came across a speacial link. Pro-Life Pagans. Now, incase I havn't said it before, I'll say it clearly now. I am a Christian, and I go to a Christian school. How ever, I carrey no denomination. Every denomination claims to be the right one, and as such as some out right blatantly arrogant claims. I hate arrogance, I've been the victum of it, as such I've come to hat emy self for it. (ALl the better since the Bible tells us to hate our selves.)

I clciked the link, wanting to under stand a bit more about pagan beleifes. I have a reason for this since Anita's family is a Christian family, but also practices some arts and hobbies that would be concidered pagan by most christian (I no longer think this, how ever, I also beleive the Devil can twist them to his favor since they are not completly of God.) Such things as reading Tarrot card and playing with ouichi boards. Also, a person who is such a close friend (whether she realises I see her as such or not) that I consider her family is pagan I wuvvs j00 Miranda <33.

Any ways, I found this entry on the PPL site and I couldn't agree with it more.

"By Sonya L Volkhardt

Do you remember building clubhouses in the back yard as a kid? They might have been an old sheet thrown over some propped-up sticks, or a hollow space under a bush, or if you were very lucky, a real live tree-house your parents helped you build. But whatever and wherever your little fort was, it was yours, and maybe you'd let a few friends in. It would be your clubhouse; the place you'd go to conspire against parents and teachers and to say all the nasty things about the school bullies that you couldn't say to their faces without risking bodily injury.

It wasn't a place to be yourself; it was a place to be more than yourself. It was a place where you set the rules and things that would be inutterable, unthinkable even, at home or on the playground, could be giggled over and mocked and made manageable.

I was reminded of a good friend's clubhouse - some scrap lumber nailed together into a little hut we could barely fit into at 10 years old - while I was protesting a few weeks ago with my local, and very traditional, prolife group. My elementary-school friend and I would write nasty little ditties about another girl who picked on us both, and draw exaggeratedly ugly pictures of her (I think, trying to look back objectively, that she was actually rather pretty). The pro lifers would rant about everyone opposed to their belief system.

That ended up including a whole lot of people.

Of course, they said that all prochoicers were self-obsessed, ignorant, immoral, utterly awful people. Now, I know they're not. I suspect the prolifers who were saying it know they're not. My best friend is prochoice; and sheltered as they may attempt to be, I can't believe these very traditional prolifers don't know at least one good person who's also prochoice, too. So that's an exaggeration and a generalization; but to a point it's fair within the context. It's like the very ugly drawings of the very pretty girl who was also a bully; it's not supposed to be accurate, it's supposed to make you feel better. This is the prolife clubhouse, after all.

Unfortunately, though, it didn't stop there. Anyone who wasn't Christian, and more specifically Catholic, was ignorant and mislead and probably had ulterior motives in anything they said or did. Anyone who supported sex ed in schools, they said, was promoting abortion and the moral decay of our country. Then there was the rant about girls today wearing 'immodest' clothing, and of course we've got to get a jab or two in at the political liberals and the feminists. And the animal rights folks. And the atheists, the agnostics, and the gays and the Pagans. Especially the pagans, who are really just closet devil-worshippers, after all.

I have a message for all the traditional, conservative, and Christian prolifers who want to use the prolife movement as a forum to vent their frustrations about alternative religions and lifestyles and liberal politics, about short skirts and new math.

This is not your clubhouse.

This is the prolife clubhouse. We who come here are here for one reason; because we believe all children concieved have a right to keep their lives. We're human here, yes, and we're going to rant and rave occassionally and let off some steam. But not about each other.

Because the other thing about clubhouses, is they're supposed to be about loyalty. Secret handshakes, pricking yourselfs with sewing needles so you can become blood brothers, and swearing your'll be best friends forever. They're about keeping each other's secrets, accepting each other's weaknesses, being a united front against the bullies of the playground or the world.

In the prolife clubhouse there are Christians of all denominations, and political conservatives, and traditional family sorts. Lots of them. But there are also pagans, and gays, and atheists and political liberals. There are girls with tattoos wearing short skirts; there are guys with tattoos wearing short skirts sometimes, too. There are tree-hugging dirt-worshippers and Jesus freaks. And we're all here because we agree that abortion is a great big ugly bully. And just like when we were kids in our clubhouses and needed the geeky girl who could do everybody's math homework, and the boy who's mom always made brownies, and the sort-popular guy who'd tell the rest of the kids to back off when any of us were getting picked on - we need each other. All of us.

You may not see it, but we've all built this clubhouse. There's a whole lot of conservative Christian wood making the frame it, but there are the atheistic, scientific nails holding the structure together, too - because we need the zeal of the faithful, but we also need the scientific proof to show the rest of the world. That girl in the short skirt is a doorway, that the rest of the skeptical, short-skirt wearing world may walk in through - and we want them too, because they're the ones at risk of choosing abortion. That liberal politician who works with everybody on all sides is the tree our clubhouse is built in, with roots in our communities, and the strength to support us. The pagans are the windows, because we don't just see the evil of abortion, but the beauty of fertility and sexuality, because we can put the tragedy of abortion in context.

And you've got to admit, without nails to hold it together and a door to walk in through and windows to see out from, without a place to be built on, you'd have a pretty pathetic clubhouse - more like a rickety old box.

So if you want to make the prolife movement exclusive - if you want your clubhouse to be the politically conservative, Christian, homophobic, reactionary, anti-pagan, pro-chastity, wearing-turtle- necks-in-June club - then have fun in your box.

But this, the prolife movement, is not your clubhouse. You are not welcome to use it as your clubhouse, to scorn and scold the rest of us. You are not welcome to turn it into an unwelcoming place that others are afraid of; you are not welcome to divide us. Bullies are not allowed here.

Because this prolife clubhouse belongs to all of us, but more importantly, it belongs to nearly 40 million more of us who will never be Christian or pagan, liberal or conservative, gay or straight, who can't show off their bodies or modestly conceal them because their bodies were brutally destroyed. They won't ever build clubhouses in their back yards; they won't ever have back yards, or best friends, or bullies or brownies or math homework. To the world, they're nameless and faceless and non- existant, but they shouldn't be to us. They're the reason why we built our clubhouse; they're our blood brothers and our soul sisters and our best friends forever, who we never got to know.

We're here for them. We're here to stand against abortion, and if you want to be part of our clubhouse, you need to recognize that that's the biggest deal there is. Their deaths are something bigger and deeper and more important than any political philosophy or moral theory or religion.

Anyone, any type of person at all, who can remember that, is welcome in our clubhouse. Anyone who can't, isn't. Please feel free to take your toys and go home; we're not here to play."

I agree. Thsi should go for everyone, no one should try to pull s**t like that.

I've quikly become an out-cast in my school do to my attitude. Some of the teachers no longe rliek me like they used to. I'm not agianst smoking, tattoos, decrative scaring (Some of that stuff is actualy beautiful in my one opinoin), use of tarot card or ouigi boards, or Gay marriage. (Out side of the church that is. I have absolutly no problem with them being married by state law and receiving the same rights as a "traditional" married couple, but I'll never ask a church to merry a homosexual couple.), use of contraceptive (with the exception of the MAP), Harry Potter (I think it hypocriticle to be against HP, but not aginast LotR, Star Wars, and numerous othe rmovies with explicit example of evolution and magic)

Yeah, and then there was this chick track I found that has made me despise Mr. Chick. Two girls are enbthraled wiht magic and this ones girls uncle come to visit, they try to put a curs eon him but it won't work. (He has the Lord's protection) He find sout, rebuke the deom that posses his neice and finds out it was stuff like ouigi boards, tarrot cards, and HARRY POTTER that made her look into magic.

I'm sorry mr. chick, but there are no recorded cases thus far of children turning to "evi"l due ot harry potter. The spells in the book have funny names, stuff oyu can laugh at, the character deal with problems that we have in our lives too. Love, revenge, regret, grudges, death, murder. It goes into bit of greek, roman, asian, englich, african, and native american mythology. And most imporatnly it teaches, how ever subtley, the value of friend ship. Not to mentiuon that fact that it turned 2 million american children onto reading when they used to hate it before. ABove all else, Harry Potter is prenseted in a "this is not real magic" type of manner.

I've debated this subject numerous time with my teacher, and they always loose. And yet, these same teachers don't have problem with games like Devil May Cry, Elder Scrolls Three: Morrowind, ES4: Oblicion, Blood Ryne. The don't have a problem with books like Lord of the Ring, the Hobbit, any of the Star Wars books. They don't have a problem with movies like Star Wars, Doom, Willow, or the LotR trilogy. Why? Because. they say, none of it is real. HELLO! What is Harry Potter then? Thats when I stump them. Their only responce is "well it has magic in it." I then roll my eyes and walk away.

I can under stand banning the book form school and saying its not with christion teachings. But to down right say its evil is arrogant. {/rant}

He promotes DnD as evil? eek

b***h.... stare