"How would you like to ask the government's permission to go to church?

How would you like hearing from the federal government that, because yours is not an officially registered religion, you can't go to church — but that if you spend years navigating an inscrutably opaque bureaucracy, you might hope to emerge at the other end of the maze with a certificate of authenticity?

How would you like it if everyone acknowledges your beliefs, but nonetheless is going by the book and treating them as ersatz because of a decades-old paperwork error that the government refuses to correct?

Yeah, you'd be ready for a war dance too."

Get the Story:
Editorial: How'd you like to need a permit just to worship? (The Redding Record-Searchlight 5/25)

Also Today:
Wintu's Fight to Close River for Special Ceremony (KHSL-TV 5/24)

Related Stories:
Winnemem Wintu Tribe plans blockade of lake during ceremony (5/23)