Aloha Kakou!
Welcome to the webpage of the Pagan Unity Campaign, Hawaii. I'm M. Grayheart, state chair.
Pagan unity? What's that and what does it mean to me?
Good question. Paganism is such a diverse group of many religions that there is no way to really unify anyone within it, except within smaller groups -- and hey, that's not really unifying all Pagans now is it?
The Cauldron has a definition on their Pagan Primer that seems to be the least offensive way of defining Paganism. Their definition is this: A Pagan religion is a religion that is not Jewish, Christian, or Islamic and self-identifies as Pagan.
As you can see, this leaves a lot of wiggle room for who can and can't be Pagan. And that is the way most Pagans like it.
However, it presents a bit of a problem for the PUC in particular. It is not our aim to try to unite Pagans religiously at all, but rather politically. That said, we must deal with many of our elected officials, some more tolerant than others. And as many of you may know, to deal in politics is to deal with spin and propaganda.
Now, I hate propaganda and spin wars as much as the next average human being, but what is, is, and we haven't changed it (yet). So in order to deal with elected officials, PUC will usually use the following to loosely define Paganism: "Paganism may be loosely defined as any of a group of positive, life-affirming, earth-honoring faiths usually based in ancient beliefs."
Note the use of words such as "loosely" and "usually". As well, positive, life-affirming, and earth-honoring are all rather broad terms. Therefore this is a definition that can (hopefully) work for everybody.
If this definition doesn't work for you, and you do not wish to join the PUC or help out in any way, that is perfectly fine. You are not required to be part of it. However, if you do decide that our mission and goals are far apart from your worldview, I ask that you please do not work against us. There is no reason we cannot coexist. Mahalo for your kokua.
So what is your mission?
The mission of the Pagan Unity Campaign is to unify the many diverse branches of Paganism in America under the banner of Freedom.
We believe in religious tolerance -- for all religions. We do not represent Satanist or Atheist groups, but they are free to form their own unity campaigns, if they so desire. The Pagan Unity Campaign forwards a pagan agenda but does not work against any other group's agenda so long as they are willing to let us have the same freedoms.
This is about rights and freedoms, not religion.
What do you do as the PUC?
The PUC has several different campaigns that we do every year. Links can be found to pages about each in the navigation bar to your right.
How can I join?
Well, you can click on the link at the bottom of the page to join the Yahoo group, if you want to make it official. All you really need to do to join is just participate in the campaigns!
However, in the interests of building an online community for the PUC Hawaii, I'm working on setting up a forum. This should be up within a week or so, and then you can come and register there if you don't want to get a Yahoo ID.
