Things got hot only when the secularist ideology of the Communist Movement posed a political and ideological threat to Capitalist America at a very crucial moment in our history. This led the Eisenhower administration to assuage American society's fear of communism by passing laws or resolutions in favor of monotheism ( In God We Trust, One Nation 'Under God') and by making many subtle and not so subtle revivifications of faith in one God as known to many conservative Christian Americans.

In my view, the dangers of the Cold War as manifested in the Communist dream of conquering the world made it categorically clear to men and women like President Eisenhower to remind Americans about their Judeo-Christian roots and to raise the alarm bells against communism. This deliberate attempt to align society and state in favor of the dominant paradigm of the society cannot be forgotten when we examine the present predicament of the Pagans clamoring for recognition beyond the acceptance of their citizenship to the greater height of conferring respectability to their thinking at the levels of chaplainship.

In light of this understanding I am inclined to say that when tested before the Supreme Court of the United States of America the decisions of the justices would articulate publicly what many men and women in America have felt privately. I am not sure what the justices are going to do. Will they allow the Pagans to exercise their rights among themselves in the public square? Or are they going to have the right to chaplainship without the benefit of sharing space with the others who belong to the Abrahamic or monotheistic traditions? Here is the twilight zone between societal resentment and state approval of individual rights of the person unaccepted by the dominant group.

In addition to the question of citizenship, there is also another point that deserves our attention here. The Pagan belief system in the United States has always remained for a long time on the circumference of the circle of American spiritual freedom, where they and others like them take refuge in what they might call the American home of spiritual marginality for a tiny minority whose leaders and the led had no political clout to asset themselves for recognition. In other words, because society has almost always been allergic to them they never had the chance to articulate their points of view in the public square without intimidation. In my view, because American society has made some significant changes to accommodate the Gay Movement and others over the last fifty years, the Pagans too wish to be taken seriously by the authorities. Let us wait and see how society and the state would come to terms with them.

My final point is that the Pagans under the general accepted understanding of the constitution in our times cannot be denied the right to their faith if they are willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of Americanism and the people in the military, regardless of their faith commitments, do not find their belief antithetical to the Military Honor and Practice. Much as they have their rights to be part and parcel of the American enterprise, I would personally find it difficult to cast my vote for them.

Not because I do not like all of them at the individual level, but because since I have the choice to vote or not to vote for whoever I want, I prefer to confer my vote on a fellow Abrahamic.