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nary such as Paganism
tends to be looked at with a jaundiced eye.” A
Wiccan who is a councilor in a small Vancouver Island community expressed his
fears in a recent article: “This is quite a religious area of the province
and I’m not looking forward to burning crosses on the front lawn.” Shortly
after an article about me appeared in one of my local papers in 1991, a local
Pagan wrote to me to congratulate me. She went on to say: “When my otherwise
super neighbors and friends come back from a [Christian] religious seminar,
they are full of fear and looking for Cultism in everyone outside their
church. You see, in order to have power over another person, there must be a
common enemy.” Some
people will go to great lengths to convince others that we are the enemy. It
still amazes me to see the lengths that some individuals or organizations
will go to in order to ensure that everyone conforms with their world view.
The first incident that I encountered when I started doing anti-defamation
work is a typical example of the kind of incident reports I have collected. Wiccans
are frequently singled out as targets of hysteria. Here are a few examples: In
Detroit in 1999, high school student Crystal Seifferly sued the Lincoln Park
School District after they banned her from wearing a pentagram. A US district
judge subsequently ruled that this policy of the Lincoln Park School District
violated Seifferley’s religious rights and overturned the ban. In February of
2001, another student in the same school district, 12 year old Tempest Smith,
committed suicide. Tempest hanged herself from her bunk bed. In Tempest’s
journal, found under her bed, it was discovered that she had documented how
her classmates had teased her relentlessly about being a Wiccan. Tempest told
of how her classmates often crowded around her chanting “Jesus loves you.”
along with other comments ridiculing Tempest’s Wiccan beliefs. Tempest’s
mother Denessa subsequently sued the Lincoln Park School District for $10
million dollars, claiming that the school administrators had turned a blind
eye to the bullying of their daughter. Denessa’s attorney, Joel Sklar, claims
that school employees violated Tempest’s civil rights because they knew about
the teasing, but did nothing to stop it, precipitating Tempest’s suicide.
Joel Sklar stated that “If it would've been a Christian kid being teased, you
can bet they would’ve done something,
but the Lincoln Park School District has historically discriminated against
followers of Wicca.” Denessa
Smith said she told her daughter's teachers and counselors about the teasing.
“We had several conversations about what my daughter was going through,”
Smith said. “I was trying to get them to do something about it. But nobody
did anything.” Denessa Smith went on
to found the Tempest Smith Foundation to fight the effects of intolerance and
bullying. You’ll find a link to the
TSF on this page. In
Alabama in May of 2001 a student at the Erwin Middle School in Asheville
reported that she had experienced harassment at her school. 13 year old Shana
McNelly was a member of this school’s chorus class and won a spot on the
all-county chorus. During the preparation for Erwin Middle’s spring concert,
Shana complained that six of the nine songs planned for the event were
Christian. As a compromise, the school officials agreed to remove two of the
songs from the program: “Pie Jesu” and “Did My Lord Deliver Daniel.” Shana’s
mother Vanessa states that “The harassment went on for several days and my
daughter was forced to leave class on one occasion and take refuge in the
counselor’s office. The harassment included threats of physical violence as
well as one entire class singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ during class.” Things
escalated further at the concert on the 15th of May. After the scheduled program was completed, students motioned for
the audience to remain seated. The piano player began playing “Pie Jesu” and
some of the students began singing it. Vanessa reports that “They ran my
daughter off and said, ‘Bye, bye. Pagan get out of here.’ The chorus teacher
also remained on the stage as my daughter ran off in tears. [The principal]
Mr. Peoples stood at the front of the stage and made no attempt to control
the situation.” The audience broke into applause at the end of “Pie Jesu.”
Out in the parking lot the McNelly’s were “subjected to a great deal of
abuse.” Some families drove up in their cars playing gospel music very
loudly. Principal
Andy Peoples admitted that he allowed the singing of the final song to
continue. “Had I stopped the song, I believe that the anger would have been
directed toward the McNelly family.” Peoples is now trying find a way to deal
with this situation. I
receive a lot of letters from parents describing similar situations. A
typical example is a letter that a Wiccan mother living in Kentucky wrote to
me: “8 months ago, due to economic reasons, my husband decided
to bring our family here from Carmel Valley, California. I have raised my
children as open mindedly as I could, teaching them to honour all living
things as is our way. To respect Mother earth and to have pride in our
beliefs and ways. “Unfortunately here in the Bible belt it is still 1940.
People here accuse us of being Satanists. We are shunned, ridiculed and
harassed by my husband’s family and neighbours. I took my 17 year old
daughter out of school because of the jeers and unkind remarks by fellow
students and teachers, fundamentalist Christians all. We have been
beleaguered by pentecostal idiots who feel they need to educate us (I’m sure
they’d like to eradicate us)... It hurts me that my children suffer because
of their beliefs, but I’m also very proud of them for facing the ignorant,
uneducated fundamentalist Christian attitudes here and trying to maintain a
normal life under stressful circumstances.” On the Easter 2001 weekend at Siesta Key Beach in Florida, self-identified Charismatic Christians disrupted a traditional drumming circle that has been a weekend event at this location |
Hysteria, pg 2
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e-mail: webmaster@officersofavalon.com |
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To contact us: |
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“Unfortunately
here in the Bible belt it is still 1940. People here accuse us of being
Satanists. We are shunned, ridiculed and harassed by my husband’s family and
neighbors.” |
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Dispatches:
Volume 2 No. 2 Eostre/Alban
Eilir/Méan Earraigh/Ostara 2007 |
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Click on the logo above to go to the Tempest Smith
Foundation Web Page: An anti
defamation/anti bullying web site in honor of Tempest Kaye Smith (1988-2001),
a Wiccan teen who committed suicide after being persecuted for her beliefs at
her high school in Michigan |
