School and Pagan Holidays
Marshall University, a college in Huntington, W.Va., recently became the first college in the country to grant pagan students excused absences for celebrating pagan holidays.
While many colleges have policies allowing students to miss any class for religious reasons, no other school has recognized paganism by specifically granting students permission to miss class for pagan holidays, The Associated Press reported.
I’m simply thrilled by this news, as it’s one step closer to making the various pagan faiths once again mainstream…something that has not been done for generations. And while I am not really sure of the specifics of it all or which holidays they are allowed to miss, I really do feel that this is a step in the correct direction. Now if all goes well other schools will follow suit, and then maybe rather then closing the school down for the Christian holidays they will close them for government holidays (veterans day, in service, boss’s day, etc) and then allow the students on an individual level leave when they need to observe something for religious reasons.
Luckily many of the holidays are pretty close to one another, if not on the same day, so such a transition should not be all that hard of one.
Tags: holiday