Wisconsin Neopagan Religious Bias Case Against Hospital Will Go to Jury

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http://hollandhart.typepad.com/healthcare/2006/03/wisconsin_neopa.htm

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Rogers Memorial Hospital, a behavioral medicine organization with

facilities in Oconomowoc and other locations in Wisconsin is once

again advancing the envelope of legal precedent. On February 9, a

federal judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin ruled that Thomas

Benz, a practicing Wiccan, can take his case to a jury to attempt to

convince it that he is a victim of religious bias. Benz v. Rogers

Memorial Hospital, E.D. Wis. No. 04-1079 (2.9.06).

 

Rogers apparently fired Benz after Benz left his Wiccan book of

spells at his workstation. Benz, a residential adolescent counselor

working with obsessive, compulsive disorder patients, alleges that

the book, Book of Shadows, is a religious text and that his

termination was animated by anti-Wiccan bias.

 

Rogers responds that hospital employees were prohibited from

bringing materials to work which could harm patients or encourage

patients to hurt themselves or others. The text apparently provides

for spells for dealing with liars and exacting revenge — not

infrequent themes in religious tracts.

 

Wiccan, for the uninformed, describes itself as a form of earth-

centered neopaganism which embraces a supposed kinder and

gentler " organic " approach to paganism. (No messy human sacrifices,

satanic bloodletting and that sort of thing.) Wiccans reject the

concept of heaven and hell in favor of reincarnation. They tend to

be drawn to Celtic duties, symbolism and seasonal celebrations.

Witchcraft is big, but supposed is to be socially constructive (no

turning your enemies into gnats, frogs, etc.). The generally

accepted founder of Wisconsin was Gerald Gardner, a British Civil

Servant, who like many civil servants seems to have had a lot of

time on his hands. He joined an existing coven in 1939 and wrote a

series of books on Wiccanism in the 1940s. These include The

Meaning of Witchcraft and, of course the 1954 classic, Witchcraft

Today.

 

Back in 2001, Rogers Memorial was also in the legal news. The

Wisconsin Supreme Court, overturning a Wisconsin Court of Appeals

decision below dismissing the case, held that Karen and Charles

Johnson had the right to sue their daughter's therapists and

Rogers. The Johnsons' daughter, while at the hospital, accused Mr.

Johnson of sexual abuse and her mother of physical abuse and of

supporting the sexual abuse. The Johnsons brought a medical

malpractice claim asserting the psychotherapists falsely implanted

memory of abuse. The court indicated that the case as it was

postured had an insufficient record for the court to determine

whether the case would inherently impinge on the daughter's right of

medical confidentiality. The hospital presumably is feeling a touch

of " that old black magic " again

 

Nikki