I've been talking about politics all along. Heck, the first page of my Paganism site refers to "the Wiccan Political Arena." I've been speaking of facing forward; our attittudes towards ourselves and our future. Now I'm speaking of our forward face-- the way we deal with those who stand against us, and those who haven't made up their minds.

I just heard four voices already go "Screw 'em!" If there's anyone near those people, please slap them. This attitude is hurting us; we're paying for it now, and we will continue to pay for it into the future-- possibly for generations.

We need to start worrying about what people think, rather than alienate them for what we call their closed-mindedness and then react like zealots when they step on our toes. How can we expect people to behave towards us in a reasonable fashion when we refuse to give them the same treatment in return?

Let's look at the politics of oppression. It's a pretty simple science: when something goes wrong, blame the other side, and scream a lot. That way everyone gets what they want. We get that righteous indignance, and they get to say we don't have a clue what our problems are.

Take your Average Joe. Let's say he's an athiest just to avoid the whole Christian issue. (You're not off the hook. We'll get back to them.) He's never heard of Wicca. He has heard the myths about what witches are. He couldn't avoid it, living in this society. One day he meets a Wiccan. We'll assume-- just for ease of argument, that this an average Wiccan, not one of the scary ones that I ranted about in my last essay. The subject of religion comes up, the "witch" word comes out. We've all been here.

Now, this guy has never been exposed to our side of the story, so he throws in that "Satanist" word. We don't like this word, why should we? It's not true. It's worse than untrue, it's a centuries-old lie created to wipe us out. I know that I get a little ill-tempered. Our Wiccan in this little story certainly does, and he goes off on Average Joe.

Well, Average Joe doesn't like this; who does? Average Joe and Our Wiccan part ways-- not amiably. Average Joe has a bad taste in his mouth.

A few years later, Average Joe is in another situation. Maybe he's a reporter writing an article in the newspaper. Maybe he's a boss who has to choose between a Wiccan applicant and someone else. Maybe he's on a jury and a Wiccan is the defendant. Maybe he becomes an important political figure who is in a position to vote on legislature that affects us.

Maybe he's a parent or teacher who is in a position to educate a child.

Let's not talk about the legality or constitutionality of it; Average Joe is a human, and laws may exist, but they can't really stop human nature. So Average Joe does something that makes us mad. Something that hurts us.

Who's to blame? Yes, society hurt. The preconception instilled into his mind from birth was certainly strong. But we also dropped the ball here. If Our Wiccan had responded reasonably, she or he wouldn't have reinforced a negative stereotype. Maybe Our Wiccan wouldn't have erased hundreds of years of propaganda (maybe the wrong word when you look at it-- maybe antipaganda?), but maybe a good impression could have been made.

The other ball that got dropped was the fact that Average Joe probably knows a half dozen other perfectly pleasant Wiccans, but just doesn't know that they're Wiccans. (Okay, I'm finished with that rant. The "get out of the broom closet" is only vaguely on-topic here. Getting out of the broom closet serves to make good impressions, and also to help people realise that we aren't as small a minority as people tend to think.)

The first thing we need to work on is our use of the vocabularly. Many people are uncomfortable with the word "witchcraft." I'm not saying we should stop using the word-- if we were to do that, then those that intentionally or unintentionally spread disinformation about us would be able to use the word as a weapon against us with its incorrect associations. But we do that ourselves when we jump right in using that word, or "pagan" (some people still remember the Dragnet movie and People Against Goodness And Normalcy!), and don't give them the chance to understand that the stories they've heard range from exaggerated to inaccurate to lies. There are a lot of us that get off on the shock value. I'm suggesting that we employ a little tact.

The next thing that we need to work on is how we handle the opposition. I was cruising the net a little while back and I saw two things that made my blood boil. The first was a web site by a fundamentalist who was doing the normal "Wiccans are Satanists" rap, comparing Lucifer to Satan and not quite getting around to the fact that we don't worship Lucifer. The author was pretty scary, but she was also pretty smart!! She had a page dedicated to the hate mail that she had recieved from Pagans, Wiccans, and even Roman Catholics (It's okay-- she said they were Satanists, too). There were lots of perfectly reasonable letters in there, but there were some really scary ones in there too. Death threats. Spell warnings. Even if they weren't real-- and I'm reasonably sure they are-- I know plenty of pagans who would respond in such a manner.

My recommendation? Watch these sites carefully. Most of them are pretty smart in their wording,but once in a while one will specifically state an untruth as fact, or attack a specific person. When this happens, we shouldn't get furious and barrage this person with hate mail. We should get organised, and barrage this person with the legal consequences of their actions. This hasn't been our pattern up to now. Usually we all get together and whine to ourselves, and a select bold few will go out and take action, such as e-mail bombs, or posting porno to the newsgroups with the offender's web and e-mail addresses. This just doesn't do anyone any good; not only is it petty, childish, criminal, and wrong, it also makes us all look... well, petty, childish, criminal and wrong.

The second thing we have to do is learn when to shut up. It always drives me buggy when I readan interview with a Wiccan or Pagan who takes the time to stop and pick on Christianity. Okay, I'll admit, from our perspective, their religion is a little hard to swallow. But look at our religion from their perspective. Hell, look at our religion from our viewpoint. There is nothing wrong with being a Christian. Theirs is a religion that teaches love and tolerance. Sure we don't agree with all of their rules, and we certainly don't agree with many of their leaders, but that's no reason to go about bashing an entire religion and all the people in it!!

If Christianity makes someone happy, and they don't bother us, that's not only okay-- but it's great. When decent people are happy, it's always a good thing. If you say that you don't know any decent Christians, the problem may be with your attitude. You have no reason-- much less right-- to criticize someone else for their beliefs.

Let's concentrate our efforts on putting a positive face forward, and handling our opposition in an intelligent, reasonable, legal, and moral fashion. If we act like children, our movement for equality will never grow up.

© 1998 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp