Here’s a couple of emails I received recently, both from the same eddress:
i find your attempt to christianize paganism laughable. the first time i heard your name i knew you were one of these blasphemous hippie idiots trying to destroy paganism and turn it into some pacifist sterile PC bullshit. and i saw a video of you wearing the star of david. thats why i serve morrigan. there is no way you can soften her, and turn her into the joke that you have turned the rest of the old gods into. i also think it’s funny how you promote letting n***ers and f***ots in and then call people like me, who’s ancestors worshipped these gods “fake”. i always like to listen to people like you when i need a laugh. and you jews are really arrogant nowdays. you dont even try to hide what you are doing.
i find it interesting how you take up for your filthy jew ancestors, claiming to be a pagan. ANY pagan who knows history should hate jews. it was the jews who bribed constantine to enforce christianity, and thats why rome got it’s ass kicked. and here you are trying to do the same thing. like i said, it’s obvious wether you try to deny it or not. you’re just another filthy judeo-pig and nobody with half a brain would give you a second thought.
This is just so wrong, on so many levels.
1) The family name is German-Wendish. A lot of Jews came to the USA from parts of Europe with Wendish names, but so did a lot of Lutherans, such as my great-great-etc.-grandfather, Adam Bonnawitz in 1749. My direct father was Presbyterian, my mother Roman Catholic. (I could post a scan of my baptismal and confirmation certificates, but the writer, like the crazed Obama-phobes, would probably insist that they were forged.)
2) As for ethnicity, I have about a dozen different ancestries, mostly Celtic and Germanic, plus some Native American. To the best of our geneological research, I don’t have a single Jewish ancestor — not that I would care much if I did. I probably have more “aryan” ancestry than the writer has, and I don’t care about that either.
3) I’ve never worn a Star of David in my life. I frequently wear a pentacle, which ignorant fools who can’t count often mistake for one.
4) Since I’m not Jewish by either tribal ancestry or religious ancestry, the anti-Semitic raving against me is entirely off-target, not to mention nonsensical and historically ignorant. The early Christians made a concerted effort to infiltrate and subvert the Roman Empire. They started killing Jews, along with the Paleopagans, as soon as they had the power to do so.
5) Creating Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship as a public Pagan “church” does not “Christianize” Paganism, except to those who equate all organized religions with Christianity. It just makes Paganism more accessible to those who need it.
6) As for the Morrigan, I’ve been a worshiper of Her for forty years and even wrote a popular hymn to Her that I use in ritual. I think She would find idiots like the writer far more objectionable than myself.
7) Of course, I “let” African-Americans join ADF. Most of them have more Irish ancestry than I have. Most Irish-Americans whose families have been here for more than a few generations have some black ancestry (and vice versa), because freed slaves and indentured Irish servants frequently married. I don’t have any AA ancestry that I know of. I might through the French Canadian side of the family, but it wouldn’t bother me if I did.
8) We have a lot of GLBTQIZ members in ADF because we’re not using the Wiccan yin-and-yang energies to generate power for our rituals. So gender and orientation are irrelevant to participation in ADF, as they should be in all religions.
9) No, we don’t hide what we’re doing, either in ADF or in my career as a whole. We’re creating Neopagan movements for people who want to live and pray in the 21st century, not the 17th. We actively discourage racists, homophobes, anti-Semites and other ignorant bigots from joining us. So I’m not at all upset that the writer doesn’t want any part of what we’re doing, and that makes me very happy.
I am an old hippie and my politics are extremely liberal. That doesn’t mean everyone in ADF or the Neopagan movement as a whole shares those characteristics, though I suspect the vast majority do. This is yet another area of life where Oberon’s Principle of Non-Choice prevails: “If you don’t like it, you can’t have any!”
I thought about posting this jerk’s eddress in this blog, but decided against it. Losers like him thrive on attention and wilt when properly ignored. Feel free to discuss him in your comments, however.
