The full story can be read at http://cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/9803/16/wv.01.html.
One of our correspondents notes that "The translation sez 'neopagan' but then next to it, in parentheses, is the alternate translation 'secularized.' Also, this document is NOT the official apology from the church, but rather an article in one of their publications."

Chapman University blessed the ground of their new, $5 million All-Faiths Chapel on February 27, 1998, but the chapel's optimistic title is already being turned into a lie.

A variety of Orange County, CA, Christian churches are organizing a prayer vigil to protest the first half of the new chapel's name, specifically protesting the inclusion of Buddhists, Muslims, and a Wiccan coven.

The vigil is led by The Refuge Christian Ministry. Their protest was held within yards of the ground-blessing ceremony. Joey Rozek, a Chapman junior, told the Orange County Register that "we are going to do this in love and prayer and pray that it becomes a Christian chapel."

Dean of Chapel Ron Farmer, on the other hand, hold that the inclusion of many faiths is "very much in tune with the roots of the Disciples of Christ Church," upon whose beliefs Chapman was founded.

Glynna Goff, a 1995 alumna and high priestess of the Circle of the Triple Goddess, the coven in question, was called upon to explain once again that "We don't worship Satan, we don't even believe in Satan. We don't harm children. It's a nature-based religion and we celebrate the cycle of nature." Perhaps we should create a chant to this effect which could be sung to reporters and "one true way" Christians until they get the idea.

Witchcraft: In Search of History aired Tuesday, January 13, from 8-9pm. They say, "Once upon a time that cackling crone on the broomstick held the exalted position of a healing woman who harnessed nature's secrets for humanity's good. What happened in the Middle Ages to transform her into a Christian symbol of evil? We'll study the psychological and social causes of the European and Salem witch trials."

The documentary was excellent; use their feedback form to thank the History Channel for helping pagan visibility and awareness!

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The Commerce Committee heard this bill on February 10th, and the text of the hearings can be found at http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/hearings.htm, under "Indecency on the Internet."

From the American Library Association Washington Office Newsline:

On Tuesday, February 10, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee conducted a hearing on "Internet Indecency". The Internet School Filtering Act, S. 1619, a bill introduced on February 9 by Senate Commerce Committee Chair John McCain, (R-AZ) was the main focus of the hearing. This bill is cosponsored by Senators Fritz Hollings (D-SC), Dan Coats (R-IN), and Patty Murray (D-WA). Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) announced his cosponsorship of S. 1619 during the hearing, which had been scheduled long before introduction of McCain's bill.

McCain's proposal would deny schools and libraries that do not use filtering or blocking software, eligibility to use the telecommunications discounts as authorized by the Snowe-Rockefeller provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. If a school or library does not certify that it will use a filtering system, they will not be eligible to receive universal service fund support.

Witnesses at the Feb.10 hearing included cosponsors Senators Coats and Murray, who are clearly supportive of S.1619. Coats is the sponsor of S. 1482 which prohibits commercial distribution on the Web of material that is harmful to minors without blocking access to minors through credit card or other adult verification. Murray's cosponsorship of S. 1619 was a major disappointment given her usually strong support for education and technology. An undercover detective from California, who wanted to remain anonymous and who investigates criminal activity on the Internet, pointed out that much of the questionable activity on the Internet relating to the stalking of children, etc. was via email and chat rooms although he generally advocated filtering and blocking software.

Seth Warshavsky, president of Internet Entertainment Group, Inc., which provides adult Internet content, usually for a fee, suggested that creating new domain names for "adult" material would lead to more affective filtering and thus minimize overly broad filtering of other information. His company cooperates with various filtering software manufacturers by voluntarily providing addresses for adult sites to the filtering developers. He also argued that use of credit cards and related techniques would also protect children from adult materials.

Christine Varney, chair of the December 1997 Internet Online Summit, and a lawyer with Hogan & Hartson, emphasized that filtering software and technologies are in their infancies and PICS (Platform for Internet Content selection) had yet to be fully developed. She urged more flexibility for schools and libraries, a position that Sen. McCain disagreed with in the hearing. The only school or library witness was Elizabeth Whitaker, coordinator of Instructional Technologies, Tucson (AZ) Unified School District, who testified that their school system does deploy filtering software. She indicated that the only complaints about filtering being censorship came from "internal librarians". She argued that the filtering should not be connected to nor deny eligibility to the telecommunications discounts.

Andrew Sernovitz, president of the Association for Interactive Media, representing a coalition of businesses that use the Internet, encouraged passage of the McCain bill but spoke strongly against the Coats bill, S. 1482.

In his floor remarks when introducing the bill on February 9 McCain said:

...school and library administrators who accept universal service support to provide students with [the Internet's] intended benefits must also safeguard them against unintended harm....It requires schools receive universal service discounts to use a filtering system on their computers so that objectionable online materials will not be accessible to students. Libraries are required to use a filtering system on one or more of their computers so that at least one computer will be appropriate for minors' use. Filtering technology is itself eligible to be subsidized by the E-rate discount...

According to S. 1619, in order to receive universal service fund support:

a library would have to certify that it employs filtering or blocking software on one or more computers and that, should the library remove or "ceases to employ any such system" that it must notify the Federal Communications Commission about the change.

a school would have to certify that it had "selected a system for computers with Internet access to filter or block matter deemed to be inappropriate for minors" and had installed or would install once computers were obtained, a software to filter or block such matter.

The bill also says that "determination of what matter is appropriate for minors shall be made by the school, school board, library or other authority responsible for making the required certification" and that no agency of the United States government may "establish criteria" or review the decisions made by a local governing board. ALA argues that, since there is little control at the local of level as to what is filtered by the available filtering/blocking software this provision in the act would be problematic. In its statement, ALA also argued that there should be no federal requirements mandating filters nor should such filtering be tied in any way into the telecommunications discount program.

The key sponsors of the discount program appeared cautionary in their approach to S. 1610. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) stated that she concurred that something needed to be done to control the proliferation of pornography on the Internet but she did not specifically endorse the McCain proposal. In a written statement Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said "I believe that we need an approach that's clear about our bottom-line but flexible enough that local communities can set the standards and use the tools that they believe are right for their circumstances, their communities, and their children." Several other senators from the committee were not present because of a major scheduling conflict with another Senate committee.

The ALA written statement for the hearing record is now posted at http://www.ala.org/washoff/mccain.html. It reads in part:

....While blocking and filtering products can be useful tools for parents to use at home, their use in a library setting is questionable at best. Libraries serve all the families and all library users in a given community. As public institutions supported primarily by local public tax monies, libraries are obligated to meet the information needs of the entire community or school population, while upholding the basic principles of the First Amendment. Within the same community, within the same school district or library system, indeed, even within the same library or school building, users have vastly needs. Federally mandated blocking software cannot responsibly anticipate the information and curricular needs of a community or determine the best sources of information for any particular public or school library users.

ALA continues to analyze the McCain proposal and discuss preferable options. ALA is seeking clarification on reports that Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) will sponsor similar legislation in the House but may focus more on requiring local, acceptable use policies rather than mandating filtering or software. Depending upon how its crafted, that would appear preferable to S. 1619.

However, these federally mandated filtering proposals have in no way stopped or changed the telecommunications discount program or the process or requirements for applying for the discounts. Public and school librarians working on discount applications should aggressively continue with the application process within the current deadlines.

The message from public and school library supporters to their congressional representatives and senators, should be that there should be no federal mandate to require local filtering or blocking software and it should certainly not be tied into eligibility for the telecommunications discount program. There are practical and constitutional questions raised by S. 1619. ALA will provide further analysis of the McCain bill and report here and elsewhere on this developing situation.
_________________________________________________________________
ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V)
1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F)
Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V)

Lynne E. Bradley, Editor <leb@alawash.org>
Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor <alawash@alawash.org>
ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org.
All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits.

For more information on net.filtering programs and their relation to Paganism, see our information on Cyberpatrol, CyberSitter, and the ACLU's order to unfilter library computers.

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Dear Pagan Community:

((This is for general release in the Pagan community. Please DO NOT post to Newsgroups and venues prone to spamming. The Net Life of this message is from ***February 6, 1998ce until February 28, 1998ce***))

As you may know, The GREEN EGG, one of the best Pagan magazines, is having serious financial problems. GREEN EGG has always been the liveliest, most thought- provoking Pagan magazine published, and like many other small press publications it has suffered greatly from rising costs of paper and mailing. GE also had a distributor go bankrupt on them last year, owing the EGG a large chunk of the annual budget. Those close to the publication believe GE can keep publishing if we can reduce the debt load of the magazine and upgrade equipment used in publishing the magazine.

Many good folks are working on fund raising efforts to help GE with immediate needs while others are investigating ways to securely fund GE in the future.

Currently, we are planning two fund raising events: the first is the Green Egg On-Line Benefit Auction, and the second is a live auction, to be held at a major Pagan Gathering this summer.

The live auction is still in the formation stage, but we are hoping to make it a fun affair that offers some wonderful and unusual auction items.

The On-Line Auction is on the Web, and the site will be opening February 8, 1998ce. We are contacting Web masters of other Magickal sites asking them to link to the site, and we are planning a bidding period which ends on February 28, 1998ce.

Currently, we have donations of artwork, signed collectible books, membership packages for major Pagan events, new software packages for the On-Line Auction. We are still soliciting donations for inclusion in this auction and the Summer auction as well.

I hope you will consider visiting our site if you have on-line access. Please pass on this information to friends who might be interested as well.

Our web site is: ^”http://auction.caw.org:8080^‘

You can contact me at:

^”Parrismcb@aol.com^‘

((If you do pass this letter on, please strip out all headers and any addresses that have been added to it.))

There are many ways to help the EGG. Check our site for more information and links. You can order a subscription for you or a friend at the CAWeb site:

http://www.caw.org/

or call 707-984-7062.

We also have a program to help get more stores to carry the EGG - we lost a lot of rack space when the distributor went bankrupt. If you^“d like more information about this program, please contact me or check our site for more information.

Donations made to the EGG thru The Church of all Worlds are tax-deductible. Make a notation on your check that it is for the EGG. Donations can be sent to ^”CAW FUNDRAISING P O Box 488, Laytonville, CA. 95454^”

The initial response to our Auction has been heartening, and we see the Pagan communities coming together to help the EGG as just one manifestation of commitment to the Pagan Way.

Blessings,

Parris McBride

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ACLU Hails Victory as California Library Agrees To Remove Internet Filters from Public Computers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 28, 1998

BAKERSFIELD, CA -- Responding to a warning from the American Civil Liberties Union that mandatory use of Internet filtering software may result in a lawsuit, libraries in Kern County, California, were sent this directive late Tuesday: "Please unfilter your terminals immediately!"

ACLU Freedom Network Web Page: http://www.aclu.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Newsfeed
American Civil Liberties Union National Office
125 Broad Street
New York, New York 10004

To subscribe to the ACLU Newsfeed, send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with "subscribe News" in the body of the message. To terminate your subscription, send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with "unsubscribe News" in the body of the message.

For general information about the ACLU, write to info@aclu.org.

For more information on net.filtering programs and their relation to Paganism, see our information on Cyberpatrol, CyberSitter, and the School Filtering Act

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