By snoadmin
Junior studio art major Doris Garcia has known her religion since age 13, but it wasn’t until she came to Cal State Long Beach that she found a place allowing her to be what she truly is – a witch.
CSULB’s Pagan Alliance Religious Tolerance (PART) club aims to provide a safe and local environment for all religions, including those like Garcia’s, according to Alexandria Logue, president of the club.
“[The] ability to be able to say your mind about your faith is the best aspect of PART,” Logue said.
Since joining PART three semesters ago, Logue, a sophomore theatre arts major, said she has gained knowledge and learned about different people, their background stories and personal beliefs.
Logue said that the club originally began as a pagan group, but when many non-pagan students came to the club, it became a religious tolerance club.
Garcia said she is very thankful for PART because she grew up in a home where her beliefs were not supported. She said her mother is Christian, but at age 13, Garcia told her mom that she did not feel that Christianity was a part of her. She told her mom that she was a witch.
Garcia said that she sometimes deals with the tension of their opposing religions at home, but in PART she is free to practice her faith.
“I had to hide what I do from my mom,” she said. “Here, I’m open to do it.”
Conflicts over religious differences occur every now and then among club members, but people of all faiths are welcome to join as long as they come with open minds, Logue said.
PART holds weekly meetings to discuss “anything under the sun,” and sometimes guest speakers from other religious clubs talk about their faith at PART’s meetings, according to Noel Rabina, a member of the club.
During the club’s Oct. 1 meeting, PART had a discussion on how to wear charms and their meaning. The club also plans on making charms and selling them in the future, according to Garcia.
Charms are used in many cultural traditions, according to Garcia, and the creator of a charm usually imbues it with specific meanings.
For example, Garcia said her earrings symbolize a form of replacement for the earrings her mom had gotten her and blessed her with when she was younger.
“[The charm] becomes so much a part of you,” Garcia said. “It takes on the essence of you.”
Rabina, a senior electrical engineering major, said that she thinks a lot of religions have a “my way or the highway” attitude that has given many students a bad experience with religion.
“PART is like a safe haven,” Rabina said. “We don’t judge. [We accept] whatever spiritual beliefs.”
The PART club meets every at 7 p.m. every Monday on the 5th floor of the University Library.
