Dear Editor,
Like Bob Winter, I too applaud the Posada enactment at Gilroy High School! I hope no one fell for the tactic used by Brian Pille (Dec. 17) putting this on equal grounds with Satanists and Nazis.
Brian knows quite well, like it or not, that legal equality is much different than social equality (i.e. acceptable), but since he has no foundation for his argument, he is stuck using idiotic associations.
I would be thrilled to see “a group of Wicans … use the athletic field for a summer solstice ritual” as well as offer a (voluntary-attendance) seminar on Samhain (pronounced sah-WEEN, from which comes Halloween tradition) in the high school gym, passing out turnips at the exit. Likewise, I hope that “the schools be opened up” so that “the local Muslim community” teach about Ramadan and other celebrations if they wish. It’s called education; too bad you missed out.
And if the Nazis want to demonstrate in the park, let ’em. The best reaction would be that absolutely no one show up. If you reject it, don’t participate, but don’t stop others. The government shall “make no establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof”; the second part is what many people so hypocritically disdain.
Alan Viarengo, Gilroy
