Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: paulhume@lan2wan.com (Paul Hume) Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism Subject: Re: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Satanic Ritual Abuse Date: 20 Jul 2001 12:03:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <20010719191641.15328.00000225@ng-mo1.aol.com> <3B5772F5.574E@luckymojo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.107.93.163 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 995655781 17181 127.0.0.1 (20 Jul 2001 19:03:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-support@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 Jul 2001 19:03:01 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:253456 alt.magick.tyagi:27716 alt.satanism:180411 > catherine yronwode wrote: > > >the Church of Satan is a recognized church > > Actually, the Church of Satan is *not* a legally recognized religious > organization in the United States of America. Depends on how you define "legal recognition" doesn't it? I assume you mean that the CoS doesn't have tax exemption privileges. I assume Cat means that the CoS is accorded the prerogatives of an organized church in the armed forces and in at least some prison systems. Government per se cannot "recognize" a religion, or discountenance one, for that matter, and is prohibited from doing so under case law based on both the Separation and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment. Government can, and routinely does, decide whether a given religious organization qualifies under civil guidelines for certain privileges (literally, private laws) extended to such organizations - eg. tax exemption, inclusion in the sects recognized by the chaplaincies of the different branches of the Armed Forces, recognition of ministerial privilege in court cases (ie. if you talk to a recognized cleric in the organization, is he bound by, and protected by, confidentiality), can clergy perform legally recognized marriages in their role AS clergy (as opposed to getting a civil license to perform marriages, or using a third party dodge like the ULC credential), can clergy obtain visiting privileges to minister to members of their sect who are incarcerated, and can those inmates get facilities to practice their religion, etc., etc. Paul