Just a procedural thing really.
Cyndar, dear I really appreciate the respect. Believe me, us old codgers don’t get very much of it these days.
But honestly, when you reply to one of my posts, you don’t have to whisper all through your reply. Just speak out, I won’t mind!
You can get up off your knees now, too.
(Nice to see a poster who knows their place!)
As an athesist and a father of young children, I have difficulty with many religious symbols. Particularly crucifixes. To the believer, they represent the sacrifice that Christ made for mankind, but to us non-believing types, it’s nothing more than a torture device. The problem grows larger in those instances when christ is actually depicted on the cross:eek:.
I understand the whys and wherefores and I am tolerant of those that wish to display these symbols. “Normal” beliefs are defined based on a cultural consensus. Please be advised, however, that simply by virtue of practicing a mainstream religion, you do not meet everyone’s definition of normal. And while I find many of my religious acquaintances to be of admirable character, the proportion is no higher than I observe among the non-religious.
I guess the lesson here is that even though it can be difficult, one must always err on the side of tolerance.
MarxBoy, please read Jodi’s last post.
Jodi - I am so impressed by you.
Not really. No, members of either religion wouldn’t get it mixed up. The point is that very few people are members of either religion, and that they wouldn’t know whether it was right-side-up or up-side-down. They know it’s a five-pointed star in a circle. The cross, you must admit, is SLIGHTLY more common, and most people, whether they’re Christians or not, know which way it’s supposed to go.
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Which is something that is completely inappropriate in a professional environment.
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Did I say I’m a Christian?
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Likewise.
Zyada - I agree with you. Jodi rocks.
The pentagram has been a Pagan symbol for hundreds of years. Satanists are the ones who’ve “co-opted” it, or rather, corrupted it.
I was ready to get on the side of free expression, but by the time I finished reading this, I remembered something.
I know a guy who recently moved here (CA) from New Mexico. He’s 1/8 Navajo, and has, among other tattoos, a sauvastika on his bicep. A sauvastika, not a swastika. Rays moving clockwise, not counter, symbolizing the Wheel of Life.
Well, you can imagine what happened. He was in a pickup game of football with some other guys, one of whom was African-American. After the game, the group moved on to Taco Bell, then made plans to hook up Saturday night to go bar-hopping. During all this, he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
Saturday night, he’s wearing another flannel shirt over a tank top. After a beer or two, he takes off the flannel, and the other guy sees the sauvastika. Long story short, Tattoo says, “If I was a Nazi, do you think I’d eat with you?” It didn’t come to blows, but it was a bad situation and could have been worse if cooler heads hadn’t prevailed.
I understand the culture shock my friend encountered, leaving a place where NA symbols are recognized and don’t raise eyebrows, then coming to an area where the way one ties one’s shoes can provoke violence. But I can also understand our brother seeing a symbol consisting of four bent lines and reacting in accordance with a lifetime of defensiveness. What Hitler did with the sauvastika was so evil and so pervasive, I wonder if Western society will ever again accept it as a peaceful symbol. Likewise, inverted pentagrams have been burned into the collective consciousness as purely negative symbols, and it will take generations, if at all, before people are open to the concept of a pentagram properly displayed.
I’d say jadailey is in a no-win situation. But I must add that it’s a situation of her own making. The first complaint was from you, not from a client. You’ve alienated a person who had the potential to be a good addition to your organization, and it sounds like it would be best for her if she left.
I personally would have handled the situation completely differently. I would have said nothing until someone else complained, and then responded with something along the lines of “We accept all volunteers who support our organization’s goals, regardless of their religious beliefs.” IMO, it is far worse for your organization to impose an irrelevant screening criterion on volunteers (must not be an obvious member of a disfavored minority) in order to pander to the ignorant prejudices of the community in which you operate. Catering to ignorance is wrong, no matter who is doing it, and doubly wrong when done by people purportedly operating “for the public good”.
I’m probably repeating what others have said. It just really annoys me when volunteer organizations turn away volunteers strictly for image reasons, which is effectively what happened in the situation described in the OP.