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Wiccan Community Upset With O'Donnell, Calls Witchcraft Comments "Teaching Moment"
First Posted: 09-20-10 01:20 PM | Updated: 09-20-10 01:20 PM
Christine O'Donnell announced that she "dabbled into witchcraft" during a 1999 appearance on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect."
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Christine O'Donnell's mercurial candidacy for the United States Senate has elevated the issue of witchcraft to uncommon political heights. But not everyone associated with the religion is pleased.
Last Friday, remarks emerged from an appearance the Delaware Republican made during a 1999 taping of "Politically Incorrect," in which she acknowledged that she had "dabbled into witchcraft" but "never joined a coven." O'Donnell immediately distanced herself from the quote, asking whether it was fair to hold candidates responsible for the "questionable folks" they hung out with in high school. The clarification may have been the only sane political move for O'Donnell to make. But it had the side-affect of angering an already politically sensitive pagan community.
"Yes, this was 11 years ago she said that," said Reverend Selena Fox, the High Priestess & Senior Minister of the Circle Sanctuary a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting paganism and nature spirituality. "But the kinds of things she is saying now, saying 'well in high school you are with despicable characters' or some such thing, she is actually defaming Wiccans. Whether she intends to do that or not as a way to try and get herself out of this political problem she has created for herself, the fact is America really needs to be a place where you can celebrate diversity and practice your religion without getting ridiculed or defamed."
Fox, who has been active in fighting anti-Wiccan measures in Congress and the military for the past 25 years, showcased a bit of political deftness when she diplomatically called O'Donnell's candidacy a "teaching moment" for the country. Debates over religious tolerance, she offered, have been shrouded recently in heated political rhetoric. And there was now growing concern among both she and members of her organization that "there will be more ridicule as well as more misinformation" about Wiccans and witchcraft because of O'Donnell's remarks.
"Any political candidate that is going to equate witchcraft with Satanism is ill informed and is not likely to get the support of people involved in nature religion," she said, noting that the pagan community was "multi-partisan."
"I'm concerned," she said. "I'm concerned that 25 years of work that the Lady Liberty League and other Wiccan and pagan civil rights and religious freedom groups have been involved in... that there will be more misinformation as well as ridicule and disrespect. We are living in politically turbulent times."
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ha ha ha ha ha. dear god this is so funny.
