In these rare moments when the baby is napping her father’s lap instead of mine, I really ought to be working on my assorted Beltane posts or making plans for the Sabbat as it is sneaking up on us and I am very not ready yet. But I’m not.
In the mornings I like to read the news. This morning, I happened across the Wild Hunt‘s coverage of Pagan Community news, and along with the opening of DC’s first public Pagan library is Z jumping up and down and shouting like a 5-year-old pitching a fit. Again.
This time it’s about copyright infringement. Although, it seems to me that Z doesn’t fully understand the concept.
“‘We all come from the Goddess’ should NOT BE rewritten. It is my intellectual property. it is NOt a folk song, which by the way is the fate of many composers whose songs are stolen. You steal my song from now will have consequences. You put men into the song, like God,a hex will be activated.”
Mrs. B of Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom discovered this little tidbit from Z’s YouTube page:
“We all come from the Goddess is a chanted song that I wrote some years ago. I am deeply touched at its influence throughout the world and adaptation into many religions. Let me know if you create a version of We all come from the Goddess.”
And further this bit that shows that Z can only claim copyright to the lyrics:
We all come from the Goddess by feminist witch Z Budapest (www.ZBudapest.com) & the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number 1 of the Dianic Women’s Tradition. Lyrics by Z Budapest and music by Lindie Lila.
For a lot of people, this just stokes the fire of hatred against someone who was once a well-respected elder in the Pagan community.
I’m not going to get into the whole PCon scandal or the ‘Who gets to call themselves a real woman’ debate. I dislike arguments about word definitions and who owns them. The whole concept of word ownership just irritates me to no end.
The opinions of those who know Budapest personally range from ‘She’s become bitter and hateful over the years’ to ‘She’s always been a bully, and people are just now noticing because the community won’t make excuses for her anymore’.* Personally, I find the whole thing a little sad.
And not in the whole ‘I feel sorry for you, you contemptuous old shrew’ way that so many seem to feel the need to fling in Z’s direction. It makes me sad that someone who has had such a massive impact on Paganism and feminist Witchcraft in North America seems determined to undo her life’s good deeds with ridiculous ravings and threats to the very community she helped to build.
I don’t know where her anger or her irrational hatred for all things with a Y chromosome comes from. At times it does seem that she is losing control of her faculties, but I would hesitate to blame her behaviour on dementia.
People lash out for a lot of reasons. To me, this looks like the reaction of an injured animal. I think that she got a lot of flack that she wasn’t ready to handle from the scandal at PantheaCon, and I think that the fall out (ie having a sister coven distance themselves from her) hurt more than she can admit to.
Someone like Z should know that this isn’t the way to deal with that hurt and anger. When she’s gone, does she really want to remembered as a hateful bigot who threatened to hex anyone who dared to change the lyrics of a song that has been in public usage since the 1970s? I would like to think that we will still be able to remember the good that she did for our infant community all those years ago.
She fought the good fight. Perhaps if she stops her tirades now, this mess will fade from our memories as a hiccup in an otherwise wonderfully giving existence.
A Less Travelled Path 
She is nothing more than a man-hating lesbian.No wonder people so often think Wiccans and neopagans are man-hating,lesbians,with that woman and her cult around.
That hussy doesn’t know what real magick is.I’d love to see her against a Satanist or other Ceremonial Magician,she would be crushed in an instance.
No one grows in a vacuum. I have no doubt that her contempt for men comes from a very real place with very real hurts. And I think that calling her names is unnecessary. Her views may be unpopular these days, but it doesn’t erase the good she has done for the community and for those who needed a woman-only space in which to work.
Religion isn’t a contest.
You’re right,Drea.I lost my temper for a second,sorry.She probably does have real hurts and pains and I glossed over that.
Though,I don’t think she has done much good for the pagan community,aside from founding female only covens(giving women the right to their own religious ceremonies was good,I have to admit.)
Next,I know religion isn’t a contest.I mean,she obviously thinks she is powerful,threatening to hex people.There are actually powerful witches out there,but Z Budapest is not one of them.
Emotions always run high when dealing with these sorts of issues. I’m not an expert in Z’s contributions, but IIRC, there would be no Dianic Wicca if not for her. She was also behind the repealing of California’s anti-fortune telling laws.
As for the hex thing, the claim that anyone (anywhere in the world) singing a song would auto-trigger a curse upon themselves is just ridiculous on its face. I’d think that of anyone making such a claim. It was just lashing out. The same way an injured and frightened animal would.
I’m not invested in the issue, so it’s probably easier for me to see her in a more neutral light.
Yeah,you’re probably right.As long as she doesn’t try to slander Buddha,then I’m cool. 😉