by Christopher Hodapp The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Georgia F&AM, Donald C. Combs, has just issued an edict in his state (No. 2022-2) forbidding the Freemasons in his jurisdiction from belonging to the Widows Sons International Masonic motorcycle riders association. Georgia Masons who do not comply by dropping their WS membership risk expulsion from the fraternity. Further, the edict orders ALL Masonic-related motorcycle clubs and associations in Georgia to disband, with the exception of motorcycle clubs affiliated with the Shrine. (Click images below to enlarge.)
This is not the first time this has happened in the U.S. Back in 1998, a group of Masons who shared a love of motorcycles organized the first chapter of the Widow’s Sons Masonic motorcycle riders club, led by Brother Carl Davenport out of Chicago, Illinois. Open to all Master Masons, the goal of the Widows Sons was (and is) to promote motorcycle riding among Masons, and to promote Masonic membership among the general public. They regularly support and contribute to Masonic programs that help widows and orphans of Brother Masons. But almost from the outset, there was a cohort of Masons who strongly objected to the public image of the Widow’s Sons, and criticized the group’s first logo design, patches and leather vests as looking entirely too much like an unsavory outlaw motorcycle gang.
Original logo for the Widows Sons included a sultry, red leather-clad 'Widow.'
(Image from Hiram's Knights website)
Their early vests often featured a Masonic square and compass, and a common objection was that Masonic symbols would be seen in bars on brethren who may not be able to subdue their passions. It was especially objected to in states where a grand lodge forbade Masons from serving and consuming alcohol at lodge functions. And their earliest logo featured a sultry 'widow' dressed in red leathers looking entirely too MILF-like. By the early 2000s, several grand masters around the U.S. issued decisions and edicts against the group, and in more than a few cases, ordered the groups to completely shut down, threatening expulsion for Masons who defied these orders. Other states forbade the wearing of Widows Sons signature leather vests in Craft lodge meetings.
Unfortunately, Masonic motorcycle associations have always - and continue to attract - extra scrutiny from critics and more than a few grand masters. Motorcycle-riding GMs in general have no issues with them, but plenty of other GMs find them problematic, asserting that motorcycle clubs of any kind attract an unsavory sort of man and are antithetical to the upstanding image that Freemasons have historically cultivated. There are also allegations that the state grand chapters of the Widows Sons set themselves up as a conflict of interest with grand lodges.
Over the last couple of hundred years or so, enthusiastic Masons have often sought to form special interest clubs or groups with like-minded brethren based on their professions, hobbies, or obsessions. There are Masonic veterans’ groups (National Sojourners), fishing clubs, gun clubs (like Hiram's Rangers Western action shooters club), stamp-collecting groups (Masonic Philatelic Club), RV owners (National Camping Travelers ), Masonic luncheon groups (like High Twelve International), and lots more. The most obvious manifestation of this phenomenon can be seen in the Shrine. Upon joining a local Shriners temple, new members are often encouraged to join and participate in a specific affinity group like the clowns, Masonic or Shriner degree teams, little car drivers, classic car enthusiasts, model railroad clubs, boat owners, private plane pilots (the “Flying Fezes”), and often one of the most popular, motorcycle riders.
Other states have managed over the years to hammer out agreements between their grand lodges and the Widows Sons, so hopefully this will be a brief incident.
UPDATED 1/27/2022 9:00PM
A closer reading of the edict gives a better sense of what it is attempting to address. From his edict I took away that the GL of GA must officially recognize or authorize any group calling itself ‘Masonic,’ and that the entire collection of clubs being disbanded or forbidden never bothered to officially get those approvals. I believe he’s saying, ‘Clean up your act, decide if you want to be Masonic, and apply for approval with the proper committee. Let’s do this right instead of ignoring the GA code and procedures.’
by Christopher Hodapp A devastating fire on Tuesday morning has destroyed the Hejaz Shrine Temple in Mauldin, South Carolina, near Greenville. According to multiple news reports, the entire facility that included the Shrine and the Legacy Pines Golf Club clubhouse is a total loss. The golf club leased its facility from the Shrine.
Investigators say the fire started just after midnight near the kitchen in the rear of the building. Fortunately, no one was in the building at the time, and no firefighters were injured battling the blaze. No word yet on cause.
Hejaz Shrine is extremely popular and home to about 4,000 Shriners. Their temple sits in the middle of the Legacy Pines golf course and boasted a 250-seat capacity banquet hall and Old English style pub.The Hejaz Shrine is a popular local venue for banquets and is well known in the community. The present Temple and golf clubhouse were built in 1984.
From better days
Hejaz Shrine has been celebrating its 100th anniversary during this insane COVID shutdown year, which postponed or canceled so many activities. Doubly heartbreaking, aside from the loss of their facility, is the incalculable loss of artifacts inside from Hejaz' full century of life that are now destroyed. This is a helluva way to mark the passing of such an auspicious anniversary.
Deepest condolences to Potentate Wayne Bragg and all of the fellow Nobles of Hejaz Shrine, with the hope that they will rise again soon from the ashes. All Masons are not Shriners, but all Shriners are Masons. Shriners International is an appendant organization of American Freemasonry. To become a Shriner, a man must join a Masonic lodge first. Some 200 local Shrine Temples and their members support the network of 22 Shriners' pediatric burn and orthopedic hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
On Thursday, the KCET website (Los Angeles' PBS affiliate) put together an article for seeking out some of the major Masonic landmarks in that sprawling city.
It’s the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world, yet most of us who aren’t a part of it are still mystified by its symbols, rituals and clandestine operations.
Freemasonry may seem like an Old World tradition — but here in Los Angeles, it reached its peak popularity in the late 1960s!
Unfortunately, membership into Masonic fraternities took a nosedive in the latter part of the last century. That’s after having touted top-notch members such as Douglas Fairbanks, John Wayne, Cecil B. DeMille, Walt Disney, D.W. Griffith and Oliver Hardy just decades prior.
Although it may have still been ground zero for the illuminati, at some point freemasonry lost its Hollywood-linked glitterati. But the Masonic brotherhood seems to have piqued the interest of newer generations — and it’s shown signs of rebounding in the 21st century, with former lodges and temples getting reused for new purposes and introducing the uninitiated to the cryptic and enigmatic world of secret handshakes and ancient iconography...
This list is by no means exhaustive - there are many, many more present and former Masonic halls and temples all across Los Angeles County. But this particular list includes:
the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood that was originally built in 1929 as UCLA's Masonic Affiliates Clubhouse (back when there were enough college students over 21, alumni, numerous professors and school employees who were Freemasons to support their own campus clubhouse). It lasted as a Masonic clubhouse up into the 1970s.
the magnificent former Hollywood Lodge 355 on Hollywood Boulevard, known better today as the Dolby Theater (part of the El Capitan Entertainment Center) and home to Jimmy Kimmel's show
the former Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
the former Scottish Rite Cathedral on Wilshire Boulevard that opened very briefly as the Marciano Art Collection Museum before it mysteriously shut down again last year without explanation
the former Highland Park Lodge that is now a music venue, but with its beautiful lodge room murals intact
See the full list with photos HERE. All of these buildings, with the notable exception of the 1960s Scottish Rite Cathedral, were built by Freemasons in the 1920s during the last years of the City Beautiful Movement, as well as the end of the Golden Age of Fraternalism. Note all of those "former" adjectives.Less than a century later, it should be noted that only the Shriners still own their's. All the rest of these Masonic halls outlived the ability of our members to support them. Yet today they all remain centerpieces of the community, even if 'the Masons" don't anymore. They were all built to be significant structures for us and the public, and to stand the test of time. No one in the year 2120 will say that about our modern-day pole barn Masonic Halls. If we can't equal or better our great-grandfathers in their vision, hopes and accomplishments, the very least we can do is protect and improve what they left for us. That goes for our remaining important Masonic structures, and for the fraternity itself, too. Are we building and improving the sort of fraternity that the visionary, deep-pocketed, big-thinking, successful business or community leaders of today would want to join as enthusiastically as they did a century ago? The answer to that is, of course, no. The real question that must be answered is, why not?
This being "Giving Tuesday" today, here is the perfect story to highlight.
Last Sunday, the CBS program Sunday Morning did a special and lengthy profile of Shriners Hospitals' TV spokes-kid, 17-year old Alec Cabacungan. It seems like most Americans recognize Alec from the last five years' worth of commercials he's appeared in, which is no mean feat in the fractured media age in which we find ourselves. Onscreen, he's outgoing, personable, totally genuine, and absolutely memorable.
The commercials have almost always shown him in his wheelchair, but most people have never known why he's in it. This touching segment about Alec explains his disability and physical challenges, which is why he came to Shriners in the first place before becoming a nationally known celebrity at 12. Alec is extremely fragile - in his first 17 years of life, he's already broken 60 bones.He has a rare genetic disorder called Osteogenesis Imperfecta, otherwise known as brittle bone disease. But as you will see in the video, it doesn't stop him.
The end of the CBS piece says it best:
"In this season of giving, we all can receive a little something from Alec Cabacungan – a lesson in what grace really looks like."
In 1922, the Shriners dedicated themselves to providing specialized medical care for children regardless of the families’ ability to pay. Today, that philanthropic effort helps support Shriners Hospitals for Children, a health care system with 22 hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Children up to age 18 (and in some cases, up to age 21) with orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care.
Until 2012, Shriners did not accept payment from patients for services. Since then, due to the massive changes in health care insurance requirements and regulations, the hospitals now bill patients' insurance companies if available, but still provide free care to children without insurance and waive all out of pocket costs insurance does not cover.
If you are interested in joining the Shrine and becoming part of the supporting organization that created this tremendous philanthropy, you should know that all Shriners are first Freemasons and part of our worldwide fraternity.
Today, there are more than 300,000 Shriners who belong to 196 temples in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Europe, and Australia.
All Shriners are Masons, but not all Masons are Shriners.
You can't keep up with with the pop culture these days without a scorecard app. In truth, you probably need five or six apps on two different smartphones plus a desktop version just to keep up to date.
The Disney Corporation launched its new highly-touted video streaming service this past week, and in their infinite wisdom to appear suitably angelic to the world, they've been hard at work apologizing for or plastering over past perceived wrongthinking and insensitivity. Disney's old movies, TV shows and cartoons are now accompanied by disclaimer notices like "This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.” But the Disney programs aren't being kept "as created," and many have just plain been edited with potentially 'offensive' sequences and images altered or removed entirely. The result has been an international anvil chorus of hoots of derision against Disney, with an almost equal and opposite clamor that they edit even more out. But editing and censoring the past is a fool's errand that ultimately makes no one happy, and arguably, increasingly ignorant of even the recent past. Sorry, but I'm a big believer that understanding the whys and wherefores and the history of the past is a whole lot more successful and influential than attempting to eliminate every possible trace of it. Call me crazy. These just aren't old Mickey Mouse cartoons, Peter Pan's depictions of Indians, Dumbo's black crows, or the forever embargoed Song of the South. Now fans of the very recent Disneycartoon series Gravity Falls are calling foul. It seems that the show's character Grunkle Stan's distinctive Shriner-like fez symbol has just been given over to Disney's internal Winston Smiths for erasure in their Soviet-style Great Purge treatment. They did it for a bizarre reason that has nothing to do with sensitivity to Shriners. Funny thing about symbols. Interpreting them gets tricky depending on who packed the baggage you're carrying around. It seems that the offending symbol, which looks vaguely like a cartoon fish, is considered by Disney to be religiously 'offensive' or 'insensitive.' Yet not to practitioners of the religious faith that has used the fish as a symbol for 2,000 years.
Digitally censored fez from the opening credits of Gravity Falls
Outrage. Outrage, you're supposed to be howling.
I'm sure most Shriners neither know about any of this, nor care one bit (besides perhaps my friend Seth Andrews who eats, sleeps and breathes all things in Fezdom - visit his online Museum of Fezology). It's a fair bet that no more than 100 Shriners have even heard of Gravity Falls at all.
On the surface, this isn't new. Warner Brothers has put up a 'warning label' like this for years with their old classic Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies cartoons, but at least they've been left intact. It's like a 'Don't drink and drive' notice that means 'Don't watch and get pissed off over something made 75 years ago because life's too short not to laugh at funny cartoons.'
MGM walked the tightrope by mostly leaving their old cartoons visually intact, but dubbing out 'offensive' voices and dialects and replacing them with more generic ones, as in old Tom & Jerry cartoons with their 'Mammy Two Shoes' character. She was originally voiced by African-American actress Lillian Randolph back in the 1930s and usually only seen from the ankles down - often swatting at the cat with a broom and threatening to lock him out of the house. She was implied to be Tom's owner and the head of the household, and so her feet and voice popped up in a lot of the shorts over the years. In the 1960s, the black legs and ankles were re-colored white and a female Irish-accented voice was recorded for some of the episodes. By the 1990s, the original images were brought back, and the voice was re-dubbed again, this time by African-American comedian Thea Vidale, minus the over the top dialect. But Disney seems to want to try a little of both methods - reediting and outright removal - and they're doing an inept dance step version of it by catching some, missing others, or concentrating on odd choices like the Gravity Falls fez symbol. Like I said, this has nothing to do with perceived hurt feelings among Shriners. Freemasons rarely show up in these types of animated or artistic depictions, but Shriners or their visual stand-ins sometimes do. And nobody has ever really found a reason to get worked up over it.
Grant Wood's Shrine Quartet (1939)
The Shrine's reputation as a wacky group of booze-guzzling, girl-ogling, stripper-tipping, middle-class party boys engaging in hooliganism with a generous heart o' gold was cemented in the 1950s and 60s, and were a shorthand for American fraternalism for more than half a century.
"Oh my dear Lord! They blackballed Howard Sprague!"
Fez wearing WASPS show up in everything from Bye-Bye Birdie and the Andy Griffith Show, to the penultimate Top 40 Shriner anthem, Ray Stevens' 'Shriner's Convention.'
Fraternal groups and goofy headgear were commonplace objects of comedy over the years, from the 'Mystic Knights of the Sea' in the wildly popular Amos and Andy radio show in the late 20s and 30s (created by real-life Masons Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll) and depicted in the early 1950s TV version; the Raccoon Lodge of The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason; and the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo Lodge No. 26 on the Flintstones in the 1960s.
Mystic Knights of the Sea lodge on the Amos and Andy TV series in 1952
Raccoon Lodge in The Honeymooners
Loyal Order of Water Buffalos in The Flintstones
As was acknowledged in the 1986 comedy Peggy Sue Got Married, "Wouldn't be a lodge without hats."
It wasn't really until the 1990s that the Shriners started to get grouped in with the kind of spooky connections to "ancient mystic rites" like the Masons - even if only as parody. Ironically, that was just about the same time that the Shrine changed its name from the suitably bilious 'Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine' to just plain Shriners International.
Todd Schorr's painting, Secret Mystic Rites in the Temple of Fraternity (1993)
By the 1990s, the 50's and 60's "cocktail culture" nostalgia made a resurgence, and Shriners' fezzes started getting snapped up on Ebay by modern cigar lounge lizards. Artist Todd Schorr populated his artwork with fez-wearers, and the swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy adopted his imagery on their albums to cement the connection between nightclub swing music, cocktail culture, and Shriner stand-ins with 'All Seeing Eye" symbolism.
Todd Schorr's Temple of Delirium (1991)
Between 2010-2013, even the Eleventh Dr. Who (played by Matt Smith) began wearing a fez as he traveled through time. "Because," as he said, "fezzes are cool."
Images like this suddenly morphed the Shriners into an odd combination of middle-aged goofiness with "secret wisdom of the ages," because as we all know, there's always supposed to be some special wisdom about Life, the Universe and Everything at the bottom of an empty glass - if only we drink enough. Still looking. Of course, there have long been criticisms from various corners about the Shrine's 19th century take on tarted-up Orientalism with its images, costumes, rituals, and even local Shrine names. Practicioners of the Muslim faith and those living in Muslim countries don't think it's a bit funny that Shrines have names that are parodies or lifts of Arabic words or place names like Scimitar, Mecca, Bagdad, Wahabi, phony pseudo Arabic names like 'Moolah,' 'Lu Lu,' 'Zem Zem,' and even holy objects like Al Koran or Kaaba. It all came from a much earlier age, and modern sensibilities have gotten extraordinarily humorless and hyper-sensitive when they are on the receiving end of even a mild a jibe today. With a group like the Shrine, it was never about insulting anyone and always about sounding more exotic and more over the top than any other run of the mill fraternal group did in the late 1800s. Anyway, back to Disney and that fez.
From the end credits of Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls was a cartoon that ran on Disney XD between 2012 and 2016. It told the mis-adventures of Dipper and Mabel Pines, a pair of twins who spent their summer vacation with their uncle, Grunkle Stan, in the odd Oregon town of Gravity Falls. There they all encountered all manner of the weird and the unexplained like ghosts, shape-shifters, and frozen dead presidents. Episodes contained clues and visual tidbits to solve an ongoing series of puzzles, not entirely un-derivative of National Treasure by way of Twin Peaks, Eerie, Indiana and Winky-Dink and You - all laid over a theme very much like Pokemon.
As we used to say in advertising, "Where do good ideas come from? SOMEBODY ELSE!"
The show's creator Alex Hirsch actively stoked puzzle hunts on Twitter among the show's fans, and pseudo-Masonic and Shriner imagery began to proliferate.
Alex Hirsch's Twitter clue that set the hunt in motion
Fan art from Japan by @nyankun1
The character of Grunkle Stan prominently wore a fez, and for the longest time it sported a nonsensical image that looked vaguely like a Pepperidge farm goldfish cracker (or a Pac-Man swallowing a power dot). Indeed, it was revealed that Grunkle Stan was, in fact, a fez-wearing member of the 'Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel.' But according to fans and the Gizmodo website, the censors at Disney have been at hard at work in their Yezhovshchina censorship office and tediously removed the fish symbol by digital trickery from the show's first thirteen episodes and opening credits for broadcast on the new streaming service. You'd think that if anyone was in danger of having their religious sensitivities brushed in the wrong direction by a cartoon use of fish symbolism it would be Christianity, which used the fish as visual shorthand and an identifier as far back as Rome. But no.
The symbol looks vaguely like a rotated parody of the actual emblem of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, sort of, minus the scimitar. And then you begin to see the root of the problem. Because the crescent and star on the Shriner's symbol is an echo of the famous 'star and crescent' found across the Middle East, turned sideways. That was because that region of the world was the fictional source of the Shrine's mythology in the first place.
If you poke around enough, you'll find that the source of the desperate need to scrape this obscure cartoon image from an obscure corner of the obscure culture is that somebody, somewhere did indeed make the executive decision that the imaginary symbol of the 'Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel' was just a little too close in their hunt for hyperactive offensiveness to the star and crescent symbol found in many flags of Islamic nations, like that of Turkey. It was originally the symbol of the Ottoman Empire, and other Arabic nations have incorporated it. Yet, it's NOT a symbol denoting Islam itself, as the religion forbids symbols and iconography of any kind as being blasphemous.
The national flag of Turkey
But the American-based Nation of Islam does feature it prominently on their flag and website almost as a logo. Theirs is turned the opposite direction from Turkey's and that convinced the Disney censors to deem it the cartoon mackerel religiously offensive to the NOI. Even though you'd have to squint and peer through two sets of solar eclipse sunglasses from 1000 yards to make that connection. Along with thinking that it was making fun of the religious symbol in the first place, which it never did.
Some have said that the censorship first appeared when the show was being syndicated in foreign countries, but The Mighty Mouse has refused to comment about it at all.
Oh the outrage. It wears a fella out.
Meanwhile, now that a little clot of fans have roared their online displeasure (there have to be at least a few dozen fans of anything this obscure), citing Disney's imperfect censorship has spread throughout all of Internet nerdom. They have been pointing out all week long that the Holy Mackerel on Grunkle Stan's fez still appears on numerous thumbnail images on Disney's service, so it's descended into the usual obsessive game of a-HA-ism and noisy declarations of HY-pocracy that so characterizes the current era we have the misfortune of experiencing right now.
I will take this odd opportunity to call to attention one last bit of past pop culture in case there are any advertising geniuses at the Shriners International headquarters in Tampa. They'd be silly not to take advantage of my dazzling ad man expertice, but what else is new.
Back in the 1960s when the pseudo-adult cartoon The Flintstones was airing in prime-time and parents watched it along with their kids, Shriners Hospitals did a series of advertising tie-in commercials that featured Fred Flintstone.
The MeTV network today airs on local over-the-air broadcast TV stations these days (usually as a side-band digital channel for one of the four major networks), and they just started airing the Flintstones cartoons as part of their evening schedule. The network is essentially a nostalgic station that is laser-focussed on Baby Boomer-aged viewers, and requires no cable hookup in most markets. They don't even offer a live streaming app, in part to protect local stations and their shrinking advertising streams from dilution.
The Flintstones Shriners commercials were designed to include contemporary footage from the hospitals back in the 1960s, and that could very easily be reedited today with new footage and contact graphics.
Hey Tampa - how about modifying these old ads just for targeted airing on MeTV to its perfect audience of retirees who are potential new members and donors?
Since November 2012, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas has forbidden the Masons in its jurisdiction to be members of the Shrine, and expelled numerous Masons over it.
On Tuesday, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, Jesse D. Sexton, issued an edict recognizing Shriners International as a “civic organization.” The result of this decision permits Arkansas Masons to again be members of Shriners International for the first time since 2013.
Yesterday, the Imperial Potentate for Shriners International, Jeffrey L. Sowder, circulated a letter to all Arkansas Shriners to announce the new changes.
"In response to significant positive steps taken by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas at its February 2019 Grand Communication, Shriners International passed a resolution during its 2019 Imperial Session, that as of July 16, 2019, all new initiates for Shrine membership in Arkansas must be Master Masons in good standing.
"The resolution has no current impact on Arkansas Shriners who are not currently Masons. However, Arkansas Masons are now immediately permitted to petition for membership in our two Arkansas Shrine Temples, Scimitar Shriners and Sahara Shriners."
Click to enlarge
As reported last week, the recommendation first proposed by PGM Bradley Phillips (now Grand Secretary) and accepted by the members of the Grand Lodge lays out a transition period of three years so that proper steps can be taken to return the Shrine to its former status as a "fraternal organization that predicates its membership on Masonic membership." If all goes well, at the end of three years all Arkansas Shriners should be Freemasons again, or they will be suspended by the Shrine at that time. Arkansas Masons wishing to enquire about the current status of the Shrine should contact Grand Secretary Phillips in Arkansas directly. Arkansas Shriners who were previously Masons or now seek to more information should contact Brian Van Norman, Chief Membership Officer for Shriners International in Tampa. UPDATE 7/18/2019 3:00PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Arkansas Masons Can Become Shriners
The Grand Master of Arkansas, Jesse D. Sexton, issued an edict on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 that recognizes Shriners International as a “Civic Organization”. The result of this decision permits Arkansas Masons, for the first time in more than five years, to be members of Shriners International.
Arkansas Masons are now permitted to immediately begin petitioning for membership in the Shrine following the decision of the Grand Master of Arkansas. In response to significant positive steps taken by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas at its 2019 February Communication, Shriners International passed a resolution during its 2019 Imperial Session. As result of this resolution and resulting action taken by the Grand Lodge, as of July 16, 2019, all new initiates for Shrine membership in Arkansas must be Master Masons in good standing. The resolution has no current impact on Arkansas Shriners who are not currently Masons.
The 145th Imperial Session of Shriners International adjourned on July 4, 2019. In addition to the historic action taken by the Representatives related to requiring a masonic prerequisite in Arkansas, Imperial Sir Jeff Sowder was elected Imperial Potentate for the 2019-2020 year. Imperial Sir Sowder is the first Past Grand Master ever to serve as the Imperial Potentate of Shriners International. “We welcome our brothers from the Grand Lodge of Arkansas to take advantage of the opportunity that now exists to become a Shriner”, said Imperial Potentate Jeff Sowder.
As a Past Grand Master and as a long-time Shrine Membership leader, Imperial Sir Jeff Sowder is extraordinarily well equipped to lead the Shrine through this period of productive transition. Both organizations are strengthened by the continuing collaborative efforts that have established a pathway for mutual success.
About Shriners InternationalShriners International is a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth with nearly 200 temples (chapters) in several countries, and thousands of clubs around the world. For more information, please visitshrinersinternational.org.
(Some details of this story have been updated as of 11AM 7/7/2019.) It's not over yet, but the long-running feud between the Grand Lodge of Arkansas and Shriners International may at last be coming to a positive resolution. Since November 2012, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas has forbidden the Masons in its jurisdiction to be members of the Shrine. The Grand Master at that time, Robert L. Jackson, issued a letter that declared the Shrine "clandestine" in Arkansas, and all Masons in the state were suddenly ordered to either quit their Shrine membership, or "self-expel" themselves (a curious, irreversible procedure that few - if any - other grand lodges practice). The argument at that time concerned an Arkansas Mason who held a dual membership in another state, along with belonging to an Arkansas Shrine. He was brought up on Masonic charges and expelled in Arkansas, but was not suspended by the Shrine at that time because his other state's Grand Lodge had not taken any action against him. The Shrine's position was that he was still legally a Freemason outside of Arkansas, and therefore was still entitled to remain a Shriner. MW PGM Jackson disagreed, ordered the Shrine to expel him, they refused, and so he issued his edict. The result was an enormous drop in Masonic membership in Arkansas that far exceeded the comparative membership losses that any other Masonic jurisdiction has suffered in the U.S. The sheer number of expulsions in Arkansas since 2013 has been staggering. Jackson's order might have meant the end of the Shrine in Arkansas. Because of the untenable situation in which they found themselves, Shriners International changed its bylaws and created a loophole for Arkansas that permitted non-Masons to become Shriners there. That by-law change has been in place since 2013. Meanwhile, PGM Robert Jackson went on to become the Grand Secretary of Arkansas in 2016. Numerous Arkansas Masons reported that his office allegedly stopped issuing letters of good standing to fleeing Arkansas Masons who attempted to transfer their membership to jurisdictions in other states like Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and elsewhere. The Grand Lodges of Oklahoma and Kansas both withdrew amity with Arkansas, partially over these issues. Jackson was suspended in 2017 by then-GM Carl E. Nelson, along with Grand Treasurer, PGM Ronnie Hedge. Hedge is now one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Grand Lodge of Arkansas (which is a whole different story). At the end of his term as Grand Master in 2018, PGM Nelson was elected as Grand Secretary.
But a new wrinkle developed earlier this summer. The outgoing 2018-19 Grand Master Bradley Phillips (photo) issued a Grand Master's Recommendation at the 2019 Arkansas annual meeting that finally has proposed a way to end to the needless impasse with the Shrine. The Recommendation reclassifies the Shrine in Arkansas from a clandestine organization to a civic one for the next three years; permits non-Mason Arkansas Shriners to petition lodges; permits self-expelled Arkansas Masons to petition for reinstatement, along with all other Masons in the state who had previously been expelled by former Grand Masters or trial commissions over their Shrine memberships or activities; and the decisions to reinstate such expelled Masons will rest in the hands of local lodges, not the Grand Lodge or its officers. At the end of three years, if all members of Arkansas Shrines have become Masons in that state (or in another jurisdiction recognized by Arkansas) once again, the Shrine will again be classified as a fully recognized fraternal organization under Arkansas Masonic code. In return, all remaining Shriners in Arkansas who have NOT become Masons by the end of the three year period will be expected to be suspended by the Shrine, and the non-Mason loophole created by this whole imbroglio by the Shrine will be ended. (I have only seen page one of the Recommendation. Click image below to enlarge.)
The attending delegates at the annual meeting overwhelmingly voted in favor of the proposal, and Phillips was also elected as their new Grand Secretary, replacing Carl Nelson. The adopted recommendation also has the support of current 2019-20 Arkansas Grand Master Jesse Don Sexton.
This past week in Nashville, Shriners International held its 145th annual Imperial Session. The Arkansas Recommendation was partially re-drafted as a Resolution for the Shrine, and was enthusiastically adopted by their delegates. This has now resulted in the Shrine organizing a working group from the Grand Lodge of Arkansas and members of the Sahara and Scimitar Shrines in Arkansas to begin the transition process outlined. By the time you read this, if I understand the original Recommendation correctly, the Shrine is no longer considered "clandestine" by Arkansas, and is merely to be treated as a civic organization now. (Please contact the Grand Secretary's office to verify this, as I may be misunderstanding the actual timing.) Further, Shriners International will move forward with a plan to restore regular Masonic membership as a prerequisite for becoming a Shriner once again into their bylaws, as it historically has been before. The working group's complete report is due no later than the end of this year. And then, if all goes well within the proposed three year time frame, all of this stürm und drang will finally come to an end, and Masonic careers of countless dedicated Arkansas brethren that have been devastated by this feud may be restored at last. (The adopted Shrine Resolution can be seen below. Click to enlarge.)
