|
|
As Wiccans, we serve to educate the public who yearns to understand how persons of other religions come to know their God, or Goddess as the case may be. It seems that the crux of the problem is that Governor Johanns does not know what Witchcraft is. He it guilty of the sin of ignorance. He is also guilty of the sin of not wanting to learn. If he understood that Wicca, or white Witchcraft as some prefer, is not worship of the dark Satanic side of Christianity, but is rather worship of the nurturing generative side represented by Mother Nature, he wouldn’t be so afraid. As a Roman Catholic, Governor Johanns is following in the shoes of his forefathers by demonstrating intolerance for that about which he is ignorant. As recipient of the Burning Times Award, and a public servant whose paycheck comes from taxpayers, Governor Johanns needs to step out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of knowledge.
Lest you forget, after the Catholics burned their heretics (all forms of difference) the Church of England burned Catholics at the stake. In the New World, Governor Winthrop of Massachuett’s Bay Colony, a puritan minister and politician, tortured and imprisoned Quakers. And to bring us into the 10th century, Missouri didn’t lift their law allowing the killing of Mormons on sight until the 1980’s. Sounds ludicrous? Not when you consider the power of ignorance. And ignorance is dangerous in the hands of the powerful.
Governor Johanns as a Roman Catholic in a world where the conservative right is controlled by evangelicals who generally dislike papists, I invite you to shed your cloak of blindness and lift your mind to learn about all the people who you are oath bound to serve and protect.
In the Service of the Lady