Patrick McCollum doesn’t look like a Pagan. Although he does wear a large pentacle, he dresses conservatively in dark slacks and a button down shirt, even at a Pagan festival where flowing capes and horned headdresses are perfectly in style. We met on a panel at Pantheacon, an annual gathering in San Jose in mid February, and continued our conversation over breakfast. A slim, soft spoken man with short hair and neatly trimmed mustache, McCollum looks more like a southern preacher or an off-duty military lawyer.
And in fact, he is a preacher and he battles to uphold the law. As Director of the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association, he fights every day for the religious rights of prisoners—Pagans, but also other minority religions.
Prisons are a key place to struggle for human rights. For prisoners, whose every daily act is controlled and scripted, who often live in overcrowded and harsh conditions in an environment of endemic violence, religious faith can be a lifeline.
“There’s discrimination in the prisons against many religions,” McCollum said. “But the Pagans are perhaps the least accepted and understood. If we can get our rights, everybody gets their rights.”
Patrick estimates that there are twenty to twenty-five thousand Pagan prisoners in the U.S. correctional system. That seems like a huge number, but McCollum assured me it did not mean that Pagans as a group are crime-prone.
“Most become Pagans after they’re inside the institution. Paganism offers something different—a sense of joy and freedom, and perhaps, a comforting mother figure in the Goddess. And we have the highest rate of people coming out of prison successfully, perhaps because we teach people to take responsibility for themselves and for the earth.”
Even so, Pagans and other minority religions face many sorts of discrimination.
“Many Pagans are afraid to speak out,” McCollum says. “To openly admit that you are a Pagan can invite harassment and stricter punishment from the guards. It might lengthen the time you spend in the ‘hole’. Christian prisoners get credit from the parole board for going to church. Tell the parole board you’ve been attending Pagan ceremonies, and you’re likely to get the max.”
Pagans also face difficulties in getting access to religious texts, teaching, and materials.
“A Catholic group can have a chalice, no problem, but often a Pagan group is denied the same. Guards and even prison chaplains don’t understand our tradition. They see people sitting in a circle, and it doesn’t read ‘church’ to them.”
McCollum is currently suing the California Department of Corrections to secure the right of inmates to practice the religion of their choice. He works in concert with Native American groups, including a coalition of many California tribes, and expects the outcome to have huge repercussions for the prison system nationwide.
Recently, McCollum testified in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He documented incidents of discrimination, and spoke of the necessity for all prison chaplains to have training in interfaith work and tolerance.
“They really listened,” McCollum says. “They are finally beginning to see Pagans as a group with a voice that needs to be listened to.”
McCollum is a bridge builder, reaching out to leaders of many faith traditions to find common ground in the struggle to assure basic religious rights for everyone. He was also involved in the battle to gain the right for Pagans who die in military service to have a pentacle on their headstone. His combination of warm heart and savvy, strategic mind, and his great determination and commitment, are a gift not only to Pagans but to all those who care about religious freedom.
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