At The Wild Hunt, you can read a second group of excerpts from various Pagan writers and bloggers on topics of community and solidarity, but this post is different.

If you scroll to the bottom, there are links to everyone’s full remarks in PDF form.

Yes, one of them is mine. I tried for a “hypothetical,” but TWH did not select that particular bit, so here it is.

“Solidarity” is tricky too. Does it simply refer to religious freedom under the broadest umbrella, like you are a Druid, and I am a rootworker, but I respect you as a Pagan practitioner, and you respect me?

Or does it mean that I have to support everything that you do and all your struggles, like union workers not crossing each other’s picket lines? If the Phoenix Goddess Temple  gets in legal trouble over prostitution and the Maetreum of Cybele gets in trouble over zoning, must I — or we — support them both under the principle of “solidarity”?

(Let me say that I am pretty much of a small-l libertarian about these things, but “religious freedom” is a flimsy shield when you go up against government — look at Hobby Lobby’s fight over Obamacare and the contraception mandate. You had better get real good legal advice before you play the “religious freedom” card.)

Does the principle of solidarity just mean that the stronger voices will drown out the weaker, who will be told to sit down and shut up because they are not showing solidarity?