Hate Crime Against Pagans/Wiccans « SOB’s Grins & Grumps

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Hate Crime Against Pagans/Wiccans

Posted by Henric C. Jensen on October 17, 2007

petition over offensive halloween decor 1:06 AM

Petition: halloween-decorations-or-hate-crime

Here’s the story:

Halloween Decoration Offends Witch

A Halloween decoration in Chicopee, Mass., featuring a witch hanging from the gallows is under fire from one neighbor who calls it a hate crime
Video:

My personal Comment to this was: “This is outrageous. What if the “hanging figure” was a Black person, or Jewish?”

And that is exactly what this is about - it’s not about religion, it’s about the factual depiction of something that actually took place - the killing of hundreds of thousands of real and alleged Pagans/Wiccans throughout history.

This is just as offensive as a burning cross on a black person’s lawn, or the nooses hanging from a tree not so long ago: The Jena Six - now, both actions were racially motivated - this is just what we are talking about - a hate crime. Period.
Please sign the Petition

This entry was posted on October 17, 2007 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Hate Crime, Pagan, Wiccan. Tagged: Halloween, hate crime, Hate Crime Against Pagans/Wiccans, Jena Six, Pagans/Wiccans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Hate Crime Against Pagans/Wiccans”

Q Citizen Says:
October 18, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Hi there Silly Old Bear. Thanks for the comments and thanks for explaining about that other blog thing. It does make more sense now.

About your post here: I couldn’t agree more. It’s sick that this is going on. You’d think that in today’s world this kind of thing would have been eliminated by now. But obviously there’s a lot more work to be done before people get that hate crimes aren’t okay.
Jon Kay Says:
October 19, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I’m not seeing how how an event involving actual violence to real people is atall the same thing as a purely imaginary invocation. There’s not even any call to violence here. Much more here.
Rev. Cindi Says:
October 20, 2007 at 4:30 am
I grew up not far from Chicopee. West Springfield, to be exact. I am appalled that the citizens have not risen up in anger. Yes, were it a depiction of slavery or the Holocaust, you can bet folks would be up in arms. Well, this is a depiction of a holocaust - the slaying of those who were deemed to be witches by the evangelical few. This is scary. And it could happen again if not stopped. As a Pagan, I sincerely hope the fine people of Chicopee, MA and others around the country and the world, will see the error of this display and remove it.
Silly Old Bear Says:
October 22, 2007 at 1:22 am
I’m not seeing how how an event involving actual violence to real people is atall the same thing as a purely imaginary invocation. There’s not even any call to violence here.

Perhaps it’s time the definition of hate crime was widened to also cover this kind of depiction of violence towards a specific group of people?
Justin Says:
October 23, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Is this a Halloween prank? The very concept of a “hate crime” is absurd, saying that certain groups of people deserve more or at least different protection by the law than others. Putting that aside for this specific issue, I guess you have a problem with free speech? Ok, if you get to silence the person that hung up the decoration, I have just as much right to silence you. In fact, I find what you are saying, that other people don’t have the right to say what they want, much more threatening to me than I find the decoration to you. You seem to hate me for wanting the right to say what I want. Can I call that a hate crime?

What’s more, to link the decoration to Wiccans, you are admitting than Wiccans are indeed like the cartoon depictions of nose-warted, black magic casting, children eating monsters. That is, after all, the “target” of the “hate crime”.

So, which is it? Are Wiccans nose-warted, black magic casting, children eating monsters, or is this just an absurd over-reaction to a fun Halloween decoration?
Silly Old Bear Says:
October 29, 2007 at 2:56 am
Justin…

You might consider this:

Elizabeth Eckford was one of the Little Rock Nine, the high school students who integrated Little Rock High Schools in 1957. Here is a picture of some of the 250 white folks at her heels hollering, “lynch her, lynch her” “no nigger bitch is going to get in our school!” “Lynch her, send that nigger back to the jungle.” During the following school year she was hit, punched, kicked, knocked flat, shoved, spat upon, had a soda bottle, rock filled snow balls, an egg and a tomato thrown at her.

None of it was a prank. Elizabeth Eckford as every African American, many Mexican Americans and other minorities can tell you is that a noose is the supreme definition of the words “terroristic threat.” There is a lot of talk on the right that tells folks how political correctness is just limiting someone else’s freedom to say how they feel. Talk radio does it all the time, recently on 1440 KEYS, Michael Savage in his national broadcast called for rounding all of the Muslims in America up and placing them in detention camps like we did with the Japanese Americans in WWII. One must question the morals and motives of an owner who would allow such paranoid, hysterical, hateful ranting that certainly has the ability to stir some nutcase to acts like the recent shooting at a local mosque.

Preying on fear and uncertainty, that is what powerful elites do to pit one group against the other, divide and conquer. While the poor, working and middle classes are all fighting each other over race, religion, well-groomed, politically correct upstanding citizens and politicians pick all of their pockets by off-shoring jobs, shifting the tax burden and promoting credit card and mortgage debt. The noose is a particularly egregious threat. It has come to represent lynching. In early times lynching not only defined illegal hanging but tar and feathering, running someone out of town an a rail, whipping and other forms of torture and vigilante abuse.”
Sam Says:
January 1, 2008 at 10:30 pm
That’s rather sickening.. And that’s how society views us. So, I would say it is a hate crime.
Raven Says:
April 28, 2008 at 6:29 am
I am appaled at the people saying this isn’t a hate crime. I agree with the people who say that if this was an African-American or a Jewish person it would be considered a hate crime. Would it make any differnce if there was a wart on the African-American’s nose in the noose? Would that make it not a hate crime? Whether it’s depicted or actual the intent is there. It’s really sad that in a world where there are plenty of terroists, murders, child molesters and rapists to hate people are wasting their time and energy hating the people who are least likely to do them any harm. “…And it harm none…” Blessed Be!