As far as I know, there is no book or any official site that focuses on Earth-Based signs. I know that in the past there was a lot of discussion on this topic, but nothing was formally established to provide any resources for such. Most Deaf people practicing Paganism have simply developed their own signs based on their concepts of the vocabulary. As an example, my own sign for “Pagan” is made similar to the sign for “religion” - only with a P handshape coming out from the shoulder rather than an R handshape.

One thing you might be interested in knowing - I have just within the last week established a new blog site called Deaf Pagan Crossroads. The URL for this site is http://www.deafpagan.com

While this site is very new and thus there is not much happening there, it would be a good place for a discussion on the very topic of Pagan Sign Language. I will keep this in mind for a future post on that blog.

Thanks for your inquiry!

Yes I am aware of that. I am not sure if the FCC Disability Rights Office has the kind of clout necessary to fix this problem.

Are you aware that one of the attorneys with FCC is deaf?

Ironic, isn’t it?

Why not have the ASL terps on religious shows! So we could point out the real hyprocrisy of religious people for hiring the ASL terp, who happen to be gay or criminal hirself.

I am puzzled why didn’t the religious tv shows do open captions doing by their own staff - much cheaper or pre-empted captions.

So yes, I think your comments are pretty much on target.

Thank you for your kind comments. I agree, Christianity is definitely much more visible in American society, so it does make sense that the focus would be on this religion, as it often is. We don’t see much about the practice of other religions in this country, and that is a sad thing, as it does encourage that “one religion” mentality that I feel is wrong.

You make a good point, and I totally agree - Are we and should we be willing to give that inch? Good question. If the law clearly requires 100% captioning of all new programs, should there be any exceptions to that rule? Unfortunately, it is the nature of the beast in American government that many laws are made to be bent, if not broken. Sometimes that can be a good thing…if the law isn’t a good law, then the people should have the right to protest it. On the other hand, if allowing people to break the law is a bad thing, then we should have the right to protest that as well.

Is spirituality lacking amongst the Deaf Community? Hard to say. I was having this very conversation with a CODA interpreter the other day, in which he commented from his own observation as a member of a Deaf family and a professional interpreter, it is his own opinion that Deaf people in general are not very spiritual. I think there may be some truth to that statement, but I also agree that this seems to be a problem in American society in general - both Deaf and Hearing. Spirituality just doesn’t seem to be a big part of our lives any longer, no matter that the “religious right” keeps trying to preach its values at us.

To answer your question…I was formerly Senior Elder for Deaf Pagan Network and very much involved with that organization, but I left it a few years ago and honestly do not know what’s been happening since. What I have heard is that it has pretty much gone downhill in the last one or two years. At the risk of getting bombarded with emails you may contact me at oceanwitch@insightbb.com Thank you!