Wicked Whimsy

The Maetreum of Cybele, a pagan temple (that also offers hospitality services for the needy), is involved in an ongoing legal battle with the town of Catskill. Why? The town of Catskill refuses to give the Maetreum tax exemption on their property despite the organization being recognized by the IRS as a 501C3 religious corporation. Jason at the Wild Hunt has posted updates throughout the battle, and the latest update included a link to a Daily Mail article (which, despite a little sensationalism in the lead, is pretty good) about the issue. I’m glad to see the story being covered in non-pagan centric places & wanted to do a post about it here, highlighting some of the things I find particularly irritating.

First off, the town’s reasoning in denying them tax exemption. Reading about it, it seems like the town can’t pick a reason and stick with it. One of the incidences involved the town officials touring the property and commenting that there didn’t seem to be much religious iconography, for the place being a temple. That, right there? Is an example of the dominant culture erasing a non-dominant culture & religion. Not cool, guys. Not cool at all.

Just  because a random person off the street doesn’t recognize it as religious iconography, doesn’t mean that it’s not. It just means that random person off the street doesn’t know it yet. Not everyone will recognize this, or this, or this as religious iconography or artwork (in order: that’s Islamic art, Odin hanging on Yggdrasil, and Shiva), and to assume that the reason you don’t recognize it is because it’s not f’reals is fundamentally insulting to adherents of that religion.

And of course, then there’s this (taken from the Daily Mail article):

During the Dec. 2 hearing, Pulver asked Smith for the precise arrears amount owed by the Maetreum, to which she responded that “the issue we are looking at isn’t so much the dollars and cents of exactly what the taxes are, which I don’t have off the top of my head, the issue is opening the floodgates. Once you relax the requirements, and if you stretch them too far, then you’re going to have just a multitude of organizations who under the spirit of the law go —”

At that moment, the official court transcript shows Smith was interrupted by Pulver, who again asked how much the amount of taxes owed was. Smith said she didn’t know and did not further qualify her statement.

Platine was present during that hearing and understood what Smith was getting at.

Of course she did. It’s not exactly subtle, is it? We wouldn’t want to “open the floodgates”, you know what that would be like.

People think they can shove adherents of pagan religions (and minority religions in general) around simply because we’re freaks, or because we don’t have the numbers and funding to cause adequate consequences. It’s an incredibly frustrating situation and something of a catch-22; because for paganism to be seen as legit by people, more organizations and temples like the Maetreum need to be built. But when the groups that do stick their neck out and create real life spaces for pagans to feel safe in face such difficulty (they were turned down by over 30 lawyers and dismissed by the NYCLU as “that witch group” – liberty union, my ass), it’s not encouraging to anyone else and just ends up furthering that helpless, second-class citizen feeling.

And it should probably not go without mentioning that the Maetreum is specifically a women’s temple and has several intersex and transgender women among its priestesses; I’m sure that the discrimination they’re facing is based in transphobia as well as religious intolerance. One more reason for the town officials to fear “opening the floodgates”.

The Maetreum of Cybele is accepting donations (which are tax deductible) through their website – as of the last update, it seems that their main struggle is having enough money to continue the legal battle, which has lasted four years so far. Spreading the word is also appreciated.

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