Wiccan Teen Fights for Right to Wear Pentacle, Start Club at School

October 4, 2005

Source: The Decatur Daily

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/teenpage/051004/wiccan.shtml

On October 4, 2005 The Decatur Daily reported "[Sixteen-year-old Ricky Shepard, a sophmore at Priceville High School in Decatur, Alabama and a Wiccan] confronted [the school's] principal, Guy Bowling after he confiscated two seventh-graders' pentacles, the Wiccan equivalent to a Protestant's cross or a Jew's star of David... Shepard didn't persuade his principal to let the students wear the symbol. Instead, Bowling told Shepard to take off his pentacle chain before going to class... After the boy's mother assured [the school administration that] Wicca was not gang-related or Satanic, administrators lifted the ban on pentacles, worn by several students at Priceville. Bowling said he knew little about Wicca, and had mistaken the necklace's symbol for a pentagram, an upside-down version that symbolizes Satanism... The situation is now Bowling's refusal to allow Shepard to start a Wicca club for the estimated six practitioners on campus. The Equal Rights Act requires secondary schools to permit clubs of all religions, including groups that deal with atheism, Satanism or Wicca. School districts can opt out of the act by not allowing any non-curriculum clubs. Priceville does have clubs, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes."