By SallyCat's request, my rant, which was occasioned by an email list discussion of the separation of church and state. At the time I warned the Christians to think about things from a different perspective--think about what it would be like if they weren't the dominant religion. Theacracy on the flip!
Here's an idea of what the world would look like if Pagans ran it, or at least if
this Pagan ran it.
--Wilderness would be sacred space. Humans would be allowed in but only with minimal technology.
--Parks would be open to everyone without charge, and while accomodations for mobility impaired folks would be made, off-roading, dune buggies, snowmobiles (except for transportation in back country) and the like would be illegal except on private property.
--Mass transit would be easy, everywhere and cheaper and more convenient than driving.
--Family farms and individual food production in back yards would be encouraged and agribusiness discouraged by every means possible.
--Solar panels would be everywhere and individual rather than controlled by corporations.
--Contributing to your own family's power, water, waste disposal and food production would be a civic responsibility. You would get an allocation of power, water, garbage/sewer disposal and food, like a ration coupon. Want more? You're responsible for making it happen.
--Backyard chickens would be commonplace; public space would be kept mowed by small flocks of sheep and goats.
--Sewage treatment plants would be wetlands preserves rather than big stinky messes. Composting toilets would be the norm.
--Composting and recycling would be mandatory.
--Couples (and triads, and quadrads and however else folks wanted to define themselves) would be allowed to marry regardless of gender and for whatever space of time they want. While legal recognitions would come along with marriage (next of kin, inheritance, etc), tax breaks and other benefits would not.
--One parent would be supported as a stay-at-home as long as minor children are in the home, through tax breaks and family wage jobs. If there were only one parent, some way of helping that parent stay home with his or her child would be found.
--Many civic squares would exist in every city and town where people could gather for festivals and markets in every neighborhood. Every Sabbat great bonfires would be lit in these squares, and on May Day the Maypole would be raised for the children to dance. In the summer puppeteers, actors and musicians would entertain during the long warm evenings.
--On May Day it would be considered a civic duty to take your partner into the fields or at least the kitchen garden and make love.
--Christians and Jews would be allowed to worship in the privacy of their homes. If Christians don't want to celebrate Christmas during the Solstice holiday, they can use vacation days. Jews and Christians will eat Chinese food on Solstice because all the Pagan restaurants will be closed.
--Mead would be the national drink.
--Animals would be sacred and we'd thank them before we ate them. Factory farming would be considered an obscenity.
--Every town would have a women's temple, where women could go to be taken care of during menstruation (think massages, steam baths, long talks over tea and wine, no men or kids). The women's temple would handle health care (even if the doctors and nurses were male), and care for the elderly and children with no family to watch over them. This temple would also be where offerings and prayers to the Goddesses would be made. Every mother would be required by law to take at least one break in the menstrual temple a year. Every childless woman of menstruating age would be required by law to serve at least once a year in the menstrual temple. Crones (post-menopausal women), mothers or no, would be allowed to spend as much time in the temple as they wished and would not be required to serve anyone.
--Every town would also have a men's temple, where men could go to be guys together, take steam baths, talk about guy stuff, make offerings to the Gods, and where boys are sent to learn about being men and their responsibilities as guardians of the vulnerable. The military, police and fire departments would be based in the men's temple, even if there were women warriors in them.
--Prostitution would be legal and sacred. The women and men who give of themselves would serve not in a brothel or on the street but in a temple where they would be honored and taken care of. Their profession would be seen primarily as a healing one, and would work closely with the women's temple. This temple would be where soliders would come after wars to be taken care of and have the war taken out of them.
--Drugs would be legal but there wouldn't be much point since their primary use would be sacramental.
--There would be no formal schools. Instead libraries would become learning centers where everyone could freely go and learn anything they liked at any age, and to teach what they know as well. Every neighborhood would have one; larger cities and towns would also have more central institutions like today's colleges and universities, but open to all people of all ages for free.
--Every neighborhood would have a Vesta Center attached or near to the learning center/library, a communal kitchen and work space where people could go to do big jobs like canning, butchering, and other special equipment kinds of things. There would be a work shop with tools for checkout like a library, and a work room with tables big enough to lay out a king-size quilt for basting. The community house would also have meeting rooms where people could gather for specific events or just come hang out. The caretakers of the Vesta Centers would be single women and men who didn't want to marry, be in a relationship or have children but take on the community instead as their family (the traditional role of the priestesses of Vesta/Hestia, but expanded to include men as well).
--Free-floating guilt would be considered quite odd.
I could go on and on...and I'm sure you could add a few ideas. Remember, alls I'm saying is that this is what the world might look like if the dominant religion was Pagan--not that we should be the dominant religion or that we should have a theacratic state. I'm just puttin' stuff out there.