Well, yes. And the church festival of All Soul's which occurs just after Samhain was moved from February to try and help convert the Celts. Clearly, having the church festival on the same day would have made it harder to spot their targets, so they moved it on a day.

In the little circle I run with here in the southern US we don't even use the word Halloween any more. We all feel that that is a Christian celebration and not our fire/harvest festival. Interesting thing though... The churches in our area have started having Harvest festivals with costumes and the like. nort: Silly sheep!

Julian, will it do any good for those of us in the US to sign the petition? I wouldn't want to jeopardise it because so many non-citizens signed it.

THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION! WOULD IT AFFECT THE PETITION?

Please feel free to sign it. Part of the root of this problem - and it will resurface again next year - is that fundamentalist elements within the normally tolerant Anglicans are on the rise. This is in part due to increasing pressure coming from the African led GAFCON movement which is also making inroads in the Anglican communion in the US and elsewhere. This situation is leading to a dangerous split which could put extensive resources in the hands of those who would persecute us again.

If you hunt out information about what they're up to in different countries, you'll see that this could become a major problem in several countries.

Italy has severe problems at the moment for example. The situation there appears to be even more dangerous with a recent murder conviction relying heavily on the discredited Satanic Abuse Myth rather than real evidence.

As an aside to this thread - if anyone has contacts in Italy who could help monitor the situation in the media I'd love to hear from them. Something like this is urgently needed. I do some voluntary work for a Human Rights association which works tirelessly to protect the rights of Pagans (and others)which is why I'm aware of this and the organisation desperately needs the Italian media monitoring if only to be ready when they (the fundamentalists) try to relaunch persecution of Pagans elsewhere through child harm and Satanic myths as they did in he late 80's and early 90's.

Ok so I'm in!

It's time for the world to grow up and realize that we don't have to believe the same way. It's time for humanity to start reaching it's true potential and stop believing that we are separate from one another.

Thanks again for the info. I'm glad to know I can help even if it's in some small way.

Thanks once again to everyone who has helped