On the 12yo pagan:

Some of you may not remember being in junior high school. At that time of life, anybody who is different is considered bad, and ostracised (or worse). Remember? The fat kid in a school of skinny kids. The black kid in a school of white kids. The white kid in a school of black kids. The kid with glasses. The kid with funny clothes. The girl who is too late a bloomer. The girl who is too early a bloomer. The boy who is too tall and skinny. Anybody who is at all different is the object of scorn, or worse opprobrium, or worse harrassment, or worse assault. (With me it was assault; although I didn't know the word at the time.)

The example of a 12yo pagan being picked on isn't about religion. It's about adolescents and their values rigidity -- that is, the difficulty that kids have at that age in coping with people who are different. This shows nothing about "religion in this country" (except that pagans are a minority religion, which we already knew). I'm willing to bet that less than 20% of the kids at that girl's school even go to church on anything like a regular basis. Few of them, I'm sure, self-identify as "Christian." IT'S NOT ABOUT RELIGION.

Now, if you can come up with a way to teach adolescents to accept people who are different, I'm all ears. It's an uphill battle, though. Good luck.

Alex