by Aldus Marius on Sat Jan 22, 2005 8:49 am
Ave iterum, amica...
I had to chime in, as I was one of the chief focal points of controversy there. This was not my idea; but from the time the first elected government took office in Ian 1999 (AUC 2751/2, iirc), debate raged about situations I was in, beginning with my Provincial Governor's desire to appoint me to a local magistracy in North Texas. The sticking-point...? --That I was not a Roman Pagan. Yes, things were rather sharply divided between followers of the Religio and those who were not. A reenactor Legion, to whom I had been appointed liaison, was asked to convert to the Religio Romana en masse before it could be admitted as a 'sponsored' Legion. An augur forced a Jewish citizen, in light of some perceived slight, to make prayers to the Roman Gods on Yom Kippur. And a candidate for Praetor actually boasted that he would make a better magistrate because, unlike his opponent, he was a follower of the Religio and so would enjoy the favor of the Gods!
Yes, it really was that bad during the early years of the 'Roman Republic Reborn'. It wasn't all religious, either. In fact, I fought long and hard for Cives of any religion to be able to serve as magistrates; for the wording of the Oath of Office to be changed to mandate respect, but not necessarily worship, of the Roman Gods; for non-Citizens to be allowed on the e-List; for the chatroom to be declared a 'free-speech zone', in which nothing said in the chat could be used to prosecute any member outside of it; and, finally, for the right of any transgendered Civis to carry a Roman name that reflected the gender s/he considered him- or herself to be, not necessarily the one on the birth certificate. (The response was to require such voluminous and intimate medical documentation of the unfortunate's 'condition' that anyone in their right mind would sooner slit their own throat than apply for a name-change. I guess that's what the Powers-That-Be wanted.)
One result of so many clashes was that the Administration became rather tired of me. I think, after a while, that the People did too. I ended up getting 'tried' and issued the first-ever Censorial Nota over an April-Fool's prank I played in a private chatroom. I think the damn thing's still up there, on the Laws-R-Us page, and it's the only mention of me on the site since the Archives took a powder. (Or are they back now?)
Anyhoo, it became clear to me after the last Great Big Noisy Fuss that my Citizenship there was no longer a workable plan. I submitted my notice of resignation on 25 Apr 2001 (there was even a little uproar about that!), thus ending three years of association with the OP, most of them very frustrating. I now have nearly four years of what the rehab folks like to call "clean time", and I've spent almost all of that in the SVR. My happiness here you may see by my output!
And yet, I do not hate them. I'm officially Post-Traumatic; I've been in therapy for four years for what those people did to my psyche, but I do not hate them. I treat them quite even-handedly at my Web site, the Roman Outpost; I link to them on two pages, and the most I say about them is "The Roman Republic Reborn...? --Go, see, and decide for yourself."
But you can well imagine that I am not the only person here who has had their nerves rattled by that Place. That happens when you trust the wrong people with something that is dear to you, such as your love of a thing or your Heritage. It was like a bad divorce; it was like coming out of a cult. So you can see why I am not in a hurry to socialize with them.
In amicitia anyway,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.