https://wildhunt.org/2025/12/pagan-priestex-prepares-for-arrest-rather-than-surrender-first-amendment-rights.html

Pagan Priestex Prepares for Arrest Rather Than Surrender First Amendment Rights

This article comes to us from High Priestex Mortellus.

Note: This article is written from a first-person perspective. I am a clergy member and community organizer in Rutherford County, and am also an individual directly affected by the Town of Rutherfordton’s actions described here. All accounts are based on my firsthand experience, documented correspondence, and public records. This piece reflects my perspective as a Pagan clergy member navigating a situation with significant First Amendment and religious-freedom implications.

RUTHERFORDTON, North Carolina – On December 6, 2025, a small group of volunteers from Indivisible Rutherford NC—many of us Pagan, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, or otherwise marginalized—planned to gather on the Rutherford County Courthouse Lawn for a peaceful action called The Season of Enough. The intention was simple. To be present during the Town’s Christmas parade and offer a visible reminder that every family deserves enough, not just at Yuletide, but every day. Enough food. Shelter. Dignity. All those pesky necessities we rely on.

And the location, the Rutherford County Courthouse Lawn, is not just any patch of grass; it’s the center of civic expression in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. It is where, for decades, vigils, community remembrances, and demonstrations have taken place—a public forum in the truest constitutional sense.

But when a member of Pagan clergy attempts to be visible there during a government-sponsored Christmas parade? The rules suddenly seem to change.

“Reserved” and Documented Nowhere

On November 24th—the same day we requested a permit—we received notice that “the requested date” was “not available” and that the Town was “unable to accommodate additional permitted activities on December 6th”, going on to insist that the Courthouse Lawn is “reserved,” “in active use,” and “unavailable.” As both a community organizer and a clergy member, I know to ask for documentation. So I did.

The Town’s response? There is no documentation.

In fact, the only thing the Town was able to produce was a November 5 ordinance (ordinance No. 09-26), which does not mention the Courthouse Lawn at all. In fact, it doesn’t mention the parade staging areas, or the tree lighting, or any activities on county property— simply a two-hour road closure—and for First Amendment purposes, this matters. Government, even of the small town variety, cannot close a traditional public forum based on nothing more than discretionary statements, feelings, or a desire to maintain any particular optics—it must show operational necessity, and Rutherfordton has shown nothing.
When a Pagan Clergy Becomes a Problem

Many Wild Hunt readers will not be surprised by this next part. I had already, for some time in fact, been dealing with pushback from the Town regarding the use of my clergy name and title, despite it being federally protected under Title VII and established First Amendment doctrine. Town officials had repeatedly insisted I use my legal/dead name instead.

This is not a minor clerical inconvenience, but the kind of microaggression minority-faith clergy are used to navigating in the South. Our identities are treated as optional, our religious roles are treated as imaginary, and our traditions are treated as unserious unless filtered through a Christian frame. So when the Town later insisted that the only “alternative” channel for expression on December 6th was for me—and our group—to join the government-run Christmas parade, the irony was not lost on me. Nor were the constitutional stakes.

Compelled Expression, Religious Coercion, and the Christmas Parade Problem

To participate in the parade as suggested, we would be required to adopt Christmas-themed religious symbolism, decorate a float to “contribute to the festive spirit of the parade,” submit to approval by parade marshals empowered to remove entries based on subjective moral judgments of appropriateness, and line up at a church before the parade (and disembark at yet another church). For a Pagan priestex, being told that the only acceptable way to exercise free speech is by joining a Christian parade—staged at a Christian church, with Christian theming—is not merely insulting. It’s unconstitutional religious coercion.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government cannot require people to adopt majority-faith symbolism (Lee v. Weisman), favor certain religions (Larson v. Valente), or burden minority faiths through facially neutral rules that disproportionately impact them (Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah). This is not a theoretical problem; it is a lived one.