The leek: a satirical take
Illustration by Christopher Epling.
Guest editorial by Wilbert Trooghspoon
Socrates. Henry David Thoreau. Mahatma Gandhi. These giants of moral courage inspire us to follow our own deepest convictions, braving even the wrath of the State when integrity puts forth its most exacting demand. Yes, history narrates the battle between the individual human conscience and the State’s gunpoint demand that its subjects march lock-step in its arbitrarily-chosen order. Only in rare moments do we behold a government so enlightened that it elevates its people to their rightful place as free moral agents.
We are witnessing such a moment. Thanks to House Bill 279, passed on March 26 over Governor Beshear’s veto, Kentucky’s citizens are now free to ignore state laws that contradict their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Like the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, HB 279 upholds the unalienable right of religious conscience for its people. But unlike England’s monarch 800 years ago, Kentucky’s lawmakers were moved not by threat of force, nor by base political self-interest, but solely by the power of truth. (The governor’s craven act of political expediency in no way mars our state’s achievement, but only highlights the courage of our lawmakers.)
As a founding member of the Devoted Independent Congregation of Anthropophagie Practitioners (DICAP), I risk rejection, ridicule, and legal censure daily for pursuing my sincere religious beliefs. Though some find anthropophagie (still referred to by the archaic and disparaging term “cannibalism”) difficult to comprehend or even offensive, these practices have expressed our deepest religious convictions since our congregation’s inception in 1987.
Our congregation believes that the entire family of sentient beings—we the living, the deceased, and the many deities and spirits who surround us (we refer to them as “the differently-embodied”) dwell together in a single, seamless community. Our rituals honor those who have passed before us by perpetuating their embodiment for another generation, and preserve the cosmic order by propitiating the differently-embodied via our reverent sacrifices.
Our ceremony is a faithful contemporary rendering of ancient ritual. After ingesting various combinations of traditional hallucinogenic plants, our congregants put on masks depicting the primeval forces of chaos and order, then engage in ritualized combat with poisoned darts and Melanesian daggers. Grave wounds or fatalities in our rituals are quite rare, and not a single poisoned dart injury has ever been reported outside of our ceremonies. (Our religion requires members to carry concealed blowguns on the street at all times.)
Despite our nuanced theological understanding, grounding in ancient religious tradition, and sincere intention, our religious practice has been found in violation of Kentucky Revised Statutes 525.120 (“Abuse of corpse”), constituting a Class A Misdemeanor. In a previous court case, our attorneys argued forcefully that our ceremonies violate neither the letter nor the spirit of the KRS 525.120. The state failed to prove that we “abuse” our corporeal materials, which indeed we treat with the greatest reverence, nor did the state demonstrate conclusively that our rituals “outrage ordinary family sensibilities.” What is an ordinary family these days?
Unfortunately, the court was prejudiced against us from the beginning. The judge expressed into an open microphone his hope to “pack these nut jobs off to the crazyhouse by lunchtime.” Needless to say our arguments did not prevail, and several of our members are now facing long terms of confinement in prisons or other facilities.
With the passage of HB 279, such injustice will be redressed. Since it is beyond dispute that our ceremonies enact “sincerely held religious belief,” the anthropophage community will now enjoy the same protections accorded to other traditional systems of worship. It is a great day for our Commonwealth, and indeed for the ideal of religious liberty.
So please, consider a visit with our congregation when our new facility is completed next summer. All are welcome, except for redheads, people standing under 5’ 6”, and those whose last names begin with “Q.” (These persons must be excluded because of ritual impurity.)
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