Imagine that you are at church, worshipping
your God as you see fit. You take your sacrament just as countless
members in previous generations of your church have done. Or, you're at
home meditating, worshipping in your own way.
Suddenly, the storm troopers burst
through the door, spraying bullets, screaming into a bullhorn. Your
religion has been outlawed. Even though you have hurt no one, you sit in
jail. You are deprived your religious liberty. This disturbing image
haunts the people whose religions require the use of marijuana, or hemp.
Members of the Church of the Hemp Goddess see hemp as their sacrament.
They consider the drug war a form of religious persecution.
"It's just like the Nazis and the
Jews, just different groups," says Dr. Ken Larsen, Mouth of the
church. Larsen founded the Church of the Hemp Goddess in 1995. While he
does not advocate smoking hemp, he believes that citizens must have the
freedom to use hemp.
"As long as you are dealing with
consenting adults, and they are not hurting anybody else," he says,
"then it's their right."
Larsen tells of when his grandfathers
were thrown into federal prison for practicing polygamy. He says that In
1880, the U.S. government threw away the first amendment, denying each
person's right to practice polygamy. He believes the same religious
discrimination has caused today's drug war.
"I owe a debt to society," he
says. "It's my duty to stand up for persecuted minorities:
homosexuals, drug users. They are persecuted minorities because society
violates the first amendment."
For now, the Church of the Hemp Goddess
uses substitutes for hemp. At a wedding ceremony the church conducted
last Sunday in Liberty Park, couples smoked joints of chamomile. The
herb is legal, and symbolizes marijuana.
Church members find ways to feel close to
each other, even though drug laws prohibit their use of hemp. Ben Valdez
founded Hempower Utah and is an active member in the Church of the Hemp
Goddess.
"It's spiritualism for me," he
says. "You're just in tune. At the wedding, everyone there was one.
Everybody there felt this general harmony of goodness."
Teressa Larkin and her husband, Deric,
renewed their marriage vows at the Liberty Park festival. Teressa
comments that at the ceremony, everybody brought their own love and
energy, and nobody was looking for a fight.
"It was a nice feeling when you walk
up to the circle and you see a couple people that you haven't seen for a
long time, or people that you don't know, and they smile at you or hug
you. It happens quite often."
The church's wedding ceremony draws on
elements of American Indian Shamanism. Eight poles symbolize the
cardinal directions, up and down, and future and past. Each pole is
associated with a direction, a color, a family member, and a type of
blessing.
For instance, the north pole bears a
white flag and is associated with the son. Its blessings include healing
and forgiveness. It stands opposite the south pole, which holds a yellow
flag and is associated with the sister.
In the ceremony, a ribbon from each pole
is brought to the center, and joined with the ribbon from the opposite
pole to symbolize unity. The ribbons form a circle around the couples,
who shake a rattle and beat a drum at each other, to scare away evil
spirits and excite good ones. Then the couples kiss and exchange the
smoke from a Chamomile joint.
Deric points out that at his civil
marriage, there was a man between him and Teressa, reading a book.
"[But] when we got married in the
Church of the Hemp Goddess, we were standing next to each other, bound
with ribbons, and we did things that represented our love and
togetherness," he says. "In a civil marriage, it's like 'now
you can kiss your wife,' and I was like 'I wanted to ten minutes ago.' I
kissed her a couple of times at the [Hemp Goddess] ceremony."
Dr. Larsen says the Church of the Hemp
Goddess is about ending the use of force. Straight society, he says,
uses force to impose its religion on others. Larsen encourages the
church members to follow their own wishes and needs. He encourages them
to treat their own permission as the highest in the land.
"One guy wanted to marry
himself," he says. "I say, if you want to marry yourself, or
something not a human being, or anything else, that's fine. There's no
limitation."
Teressa appreciates the friendly
atmosphere of the Church of the Hemp Goddess.
"It's not a major commitment, like
getting baptized, and they accept people no matter what. We're not here
to judge anybody. That's not for us to do."