To believe that Witchcraft and Ritual Magic represent some kind of a-political perspective is foolish at best, delusional at worst kind of reasoning. This is why I feel the need to point to the politics of our time and present it from the perspective of a practicing Witch and ritual magician. What I can say is that regardless of one’s political persuasions or lack thereof, our beliefs and practices thrive when there is an overall openness and progressive bend to the social and political body of our nation. Tolerance, the acceptance of diversity, and empowered rights of the individual, including the most powerless and vulnerable of our populace, is the kind of environment in which Witchcraft both as a religion and as a magical practice can thrive. This is because we are all truly free when everyone is given the respective and dignity that they, as human beings, deserve.
What disturbs me most is when a particular religious faith within the body politic decides to impose their beliefs, prejudices and mythic thinking on the rest of the populace of the nation. I am not a Christian, Muslim nor Jew, but I respective everyone’s rights to practice their faith within a nation where the local and national government is secular and unbiased by religious prejudice. However, lately it seems as if a certain minority of ultra-conservative Christians have pushed forth an agenda that has the backing of the Supreme Court of our nation. I am, of course, referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but other recent decisions have made the court a place of Christian fundamentalism, both Protestant and Catholic, instead of a secular body that respects previous decisions.
I cannot abide the mind-set that has elevated an ultra-conservative Christianity to become the law of the land. There is no one truth in regards to religious beliefs and practices, and there is no one true religion. As I have said, because of the common threads between all religions, either they are all true or none of them are true. Of course context is important to any kind of religious perspective, which means that religious truths must be placed within the context of their perspective, and no truth from one religious perspective can overturn or deny the truth of any other religion. Yet this is what we are enduring for these dark times in the nation of supposed freedoms and rights. It reminds me of the hypocrisy of the seven Christian virtues of humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperance, diligence and patience and how it is practiced as a divisive and sectarian creed. It would seem that the seven deadly sins are more popularly practiced in Christianity than its virtues.
There is a wonderful book that I read back in the early 1980's during the Reagan presidency, entitled “The Handmaid’s Tale” written by Margaret Atwood, and later became a series on Hulu. In that book, the U.S. has been transformed into a theocratic nation called Gideon, where the elite ruling class are the religious leaders of an aggressive and tyrannical Christian fundamentalist movement. I read this book not long after it was published in 1985, and it seemed not too far off for a fictional concept with the ascendancy of the Religious Right happening at that time. I felt at least comforted by the fact that we are a nation of many diverse faiths, with a growing percentage of non-aligned, agnostic or atheist citizens.
Such a diverse religious population should require a secular government to fairly treat them all with the respect that they deserve, and that not one group and its creed should be placed over and above the others. What worries me is that in the course of time since the publishing of that book I have seen the planks for a foundation of such a theocratic government start to be put into place by various politicians, pundits and even jurists. The Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and states that no law shall be passed that would violate that guarantee, but we are incrementally slipping into an abyss of autocracy and theocratic rule unless people take their liberties seriously and aggressively defend them from those who would impose on us their creed based values and beliefs.
Roe vs Wade was part of a series of judicial pronouncements from previous SCOTUS rulings that were based on the premise that laws against abortion unduly violated a woman’s right to privacy as based on the 14th amendment of the Constitution, back in 1973. That amendment guaranteed extensive due process rights to individuals. That part of the amendment reads:
“..that neither federal nor state governments can restrict fundamental decisions that affect their liberty or property rights without proving that there’s some kind of overwhelming national interest at stake”
Based on that part of the amendment and how it was interpreted, starting in the 1960's, there were five landmark rulings that defined a greater scope of legal and allowable conduct of private citizens that made them beyond the interdiction or interference of the State. These rulings included Roe vs Wade. Let me list them for you, in case you need a helpful reminder of what is at stake in our legal nation at this time.
1. Griswald vs Connecticut - the freedom to purchase contraceptives to block fertility. Yes, at one time, the pill and family planning were illegal.
2. Loving vs Virginia - the freedom to marry someone of another race. There were laws in the south that made marriage between individuals of difference races (particularly Blacks marrying Whites) illegal or at the very least, unrecognized.
3. Roe vs Wade - abortions became legal with some minor restrictions throughout the nation.
4. Lawrence vs Texas - this abrogated sodomy laws that made same sex intercourse illegal. A number of laws, including sex acts that were outside the missionary position, were forced to be abolished.
5. Obergefell vs Hodges - this started out as several legal cases brought in a number of States that argued for marriage equality, making a marriage between the same genders as legitimate as the marriage between the opposite sexes.
Many of these rulings have a particularly important value and meaningfulness to those of us who are practicing Witches and Pagans. Many of us are also members of the LGBQT community, or at least stand apart from the Christian Religious Right, realizing that anyone who is denied their basic rights puts at risk the freedoms and rights of everyone. We are not alone in seeing the risk of overturning any of these rulings and what that might do to the world we live in today.
The current 2022 ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade represented the Supreme Court’s rejection of precedence and throwing out the whole basis of the 14th amendment on which these rulings were originally based. What that does, in fact, is jeopardize the other four rulings, since they were based on the same right to privacy that allowed Roe vs. Wade to be the law of the land for almost 50 years. If the people’s right to privacy is no longer a valid and dependable right, then we are in for a very rough period indeed. It is likely and possible, with the current make up of the Supreme Court that at least three of those current rulings will possibly fall in the very near future.
That means that contraception will become illegal, same sex marriage and intercourse will become illegal, and maybe some States will be allowed to once again outlaw marriages between people of different races. It also means that States could be allowed to force certain religious beliefs on their populations and outlaw other unacceptable faiths, such as my own. No one knows how far these precedents will push the legal domain of the Federal Government and States to make life more difficult and a lot less free than it has been. Some States won’t go in this direction, but others will happily interdict their populations with all sorts of restrictive laws on the behavior and life-style of individuals.
All of these events have me dreading the future, since there doesn’t seem to be much that anyone can do right now to push the nation in the other direction. However, there is one antidote to this pernicious slide to a theocratic autocracy, and that is to vote, and get your friends, family and colleagues to vote. We need to build liberal super majorities in States and the U. S. Congress and Senate and pass laws that will enforce the right to privacy. It is something that actually protects all of us from unwarranted scrutiny and interdiction, and we need to be motivated as if our freedom and the conservation of our life-style depends on it - because it does!
No excuses - get out and vote in November. If you don’t vote and these conservative cretins successfully gain power, those of us who are practicing non-Christian based faiths will rue the day that we didn’t act as a majority to save our nation. Keep in mind that the Religious Right represents a distinct minority, and when we act as a coalition of majority minded folks they will be out-voted and put out of power.
Frater Barrabbas
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