Reply #21: Try following a Native American religion!

[jswordy]

Until 1978, when Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, you could be arrested for doing religious ceremonies.

http://www.eh.doe.gov/oepa/laws/airfa.html

And people will look at me when I say that and say, "No way, I don't believe it." But on the reservations, it happened all the time, the FBI and other agencies of the U.S. government did it routinely. There is a long history of religious persecution by the U.S. government, starting with Wounded Knee and continuing today.

As recently as 1995, when an Indian medicine man who shall remain nameless traveled from his Western state to the South to do ceremonies, he was followed by CIA and FBI agents. And I have this confirmed from police friends of those in that teaching circle, who asked what the feds wanted with the old Indian, that they would be snooping about this rural area after his arrival.

Land of religious freedom, my foot!

Posts like this I have made have been removed before on DU, so read this quick before it goes.