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people over and over again. I wrote out the correct wording for an
affirmation on the back of my appearance notice book (taking the example of
the court clerks and their cue-cards). I also created a small contingency
package of photocopies from the BC Courts Operating Manual for those special
situations in which people had trouble grasping the concept of doing
something different. I quickly learned that some NCOs accepted my affirmation procedure and
processed my documents without question. A few others resisted, bombarding me
with quotations from scripture and trying to talk me out of both the
affirmation and my spirituality. I very quickly learned who to avoid. It was
a lot less trouble to look a little longer for a person who had no problem
with affirmations than to try to convince an unwilling supervisor to do an
affirmation for me. Shortly after my decision to use affirmations, I went looking for a
Sergeant to affirm the affidavit on the back of an appearance notice that I'd
issued to a shoplifter. As luck would have it, the only Sergeant available
then was one newly assigned to our division. This sergeant didn't know me.
He’d never had a Wiccan officer place an appearance notice for affirmation in
front of him before. I therefore had to explain the procedure to the sergeant
at length. He thought that I was pulling a prank on him at first. I had to
reassure him that this was not some practical joke. Satisfied at last that
this was a legal procedure under the Oaths Act, the sergeant signed the
affidavit. He did not ask me what my beliefs were and I didn't volunteer the
information. In the future I would find that this sergeant processed my
affirmations without question. It was when he left the room that the fun
began. This procedure had been witnessed by a corporal, also newly arrived in
the division. This corporal had been watching us from across the row of NCO's
desks. As I walked away with my completed affidavit he said, “Well! Can you
beat that! There are some agnostics in this department!” “Meaning me?” “Uh... yes.” “What makes you think that I'm an agnostic?” “Well... uh... you don't believe in God.” I picked up the Webster’s dictionary on the corporal's desk. Flipping it
open, I read the definition of agnostic to him: “One who holds the view that
any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.” I then
continued, “What makes you think that I believe that any ultimate reality is
unknown?” “Do you believe in an ultimate reality?” “Yes.” The corporal now had a puzzled expression on his face. He stammered,
“But... you must be an atheist. If you’re not a Christian, there isn't
anything else.” I flipped to another page in the dictionary and read the definition to
him, “Atheism: ‘a disbelief in the
existence of deity.’ There are plenty of deities out there. What about
Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism...?” “Oh, but those are false faiths.” “What's real then?” “I'm a Catholic,” the corporal responded, puffing himself up and adopting
his best sermon from the pulpit posture, “The source of our problems is that
people have turned away from the Bible. I believe that the problems in the
world today would all be solved if we did what it tells us to do in the
Bible.” “What about the Middle East?” I replied, “Or Northern Ireland? In many
different places you've got different religious sects running about saying,
‘My way or the highway,’ and bumping each other off.” “That's just the point! It says in Exodus the Bible, ‘Thou shalt not
kill.’” “Then why are people in these places using religion to justify their
violence?” I started to leave at this point. I had obtained what I had come into the
office to get and I had reports to be written. The corporal was rapidly
leafing through his Bible as if looking for something else to throw out to
me. I grabbed some papers from my briefcase and started for the report
writing room door. He called after me, “Wait a minute! Do all of you non-Christians use the
affirmation thing?” “Nope. Some use the Chicken Oath.” “The what?” “The Chicken Oath.” The corporal was starting to turn purple. “This is a joke, right?” I returned to my briefcase and extracted some papers from the
aforementioned contingency packet. I turned them over to the corporal. These
excerpts from the Courts Operating Manual which I handed to the corporal
listed the following real and legal oaths used by the occasional citizen who
ends up on the witness stand in my Province: "7. CHINESE
NON-CHRISTIAN OATHS: "A) PAPER
OATH (Civil): “The witness writes his name on a piece of paper and takes the following oath while burning the paper: ‘The evidence which you shall give to the Court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or your soul shall be con |
The Fool: pg 4
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Dispatches:
Volume 2 No. 1 Imbolc/Feile
Bhride/Brigid//Barri/Iddis-Thing 2007 |