Deborah Lipp

Amy wants to know what’s wrong with mixing pantheons, anyway. It’s a good question.

Our culture is an eclectic one by nature; it is the way of modernity. Even the most hidebound Traditionalist is affected by this. At lunch the other day, the Indians were eating pizza, the Libyan had Chinese food, and I ate Greek salad with the Israelis. The polyglot West uses TV, movies, and yes, the Internet, to convey a broad cultural mix. We might think this doesn’t effect religion, but we’d be wrong. In fact, I’d argue that the Radical Christian Right is fighting against exactly this blended cultural stew, more than Paganism, liberalism, or homosexuality, which are merely symptoms of accepting the coexistence of a multiplicity of values. They know that even Christianity grows, changes, and embraces other influences, and it frightens them.

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When I was a kid I was obsessed with Greek mythology. By the time I was 13, I’d read every book in the school library on the subject, and every book in the town library to which children had access. Then I moved on to Norse myth, then to fairy tales. But Greek myth was my first love and remained my favorite. Perhaps it is too obvious to say that this had a strong influence on my religious life.

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In Wicca, the Goddess tells us “All acts of Love & Pleasure are My rituals.” This is fundamental to who and what we are as Wiccans. Love and pleasure, in combination, are sacred. They are, inherently, offerings to the Goddess.

Premarital sex? A ritual to the Goddess. Homosexual sex? A ritual to the Goddess. Masturbation? A ritual to the Goddess. Group sex? A ritual to the Goddess.

But…but…sputter…sputter… What about all the bad stuff? Rape? Not love and pleasure: Not a ritual. Child molestation? Not love and pleasure: Not a ritual. Nothing with a victim can be defined as “love and pleasure.” Nothing without consent can be defined as love and pleasure.

The majority of world religions have determined that most human behavior, especially sex, is usually bad, and is only good under special circumstances. These circumstances include variations on the who, the how, the when. NOT with a same sex partner. Or more than one partner. Or less than one partner. Or using the mouth. Or touching the butt. Or during your period. Or, or, or… (Shakespeare’s Sister has today’s list of ways The They are trying to say sex is bad. They’re wrong again.)

Wicca and most of Paganism has the opposite view. Most of human behavior, especially sex, is usually good, and is only bad under special circumstances. Unless it’s non-consensual, or harmful, or willfully and callously spreading disease, or based on dishonesty. The list of “unless” is short and to the point. It’s not designed to trick the unwary.

The thing I don’t get is why they keep trying to supress the Evils of Sexuality™ when it never works. Seriously, folks, you’ve been on this kick for several thousand years. Have you ever succeeded in getting us to stop The Sex?

It’s not just that suppression doesn’t work, it’s that it’s actively counter-productive. Transgressive sex is among the hottest kinds of sex there is. Moreover, denying the idea of good, happy, fun-fun-fun sex leads directly to nasty, unpleasant, non-consensual sex. Priests abusing altar boys, anyone? Finally, suppression leads to ignorance, and ignorant sex is not safe sex. Ignorance increases unwanted pregnancy, disease, and, most ironically of all, fails to teach us how to say no.

It’s the Reefer Madness model. If you teach us the stuff is ridiculously dangerous, once we find out it isn’t, we won’t believe any of your other warnings. Teach kids that pot will make them jump off buildings, and they won’t believe you when you tell them it’ll impair driving. Teach kids that all drugs are equally bad, and they won’t be able to distinguish between the occasional use of recreational marijuana and crack addiction. Just so, teach them that all sex is bad, bad, bad, and they won’t be able to distinguish between freely chosen, consensual sex, and sex performed under pressure. The guilt and shame will add to the damage.

For thousands of years, human beings have been spinning their wheels using the suppression model. Isn’t it time to try another way?

All acts of Love and Pleasure are My rituals.

So mote it be.

One of the local TV stations used to say, this time of year, “Merry Christmas. And Happy Chanukkah to all our Jewish friends.”

Gods, I hated that. It’s the very epitome of unconscious marginalization. I mean, more than half the people to whom I expressed disgust just didn’t get it. “It’s nice,” they’d say, “It’s inclusive.” Not so much. The implicit statement is: There’s an Us and a Them. Merry Christmas to Us. Happy Chanukah to Those Others.

When they changed the message, maybe ten years ago, I felt vindicated. It proved I wasn’t a whacko who was offended for no good reason; someone else saw the problem and made the change.

I have lots of non-Christian friends. Most of them are Pagans who were raised some version of Christian or Christian/agnostic (i.e. raised by nominally Christian parents but without religious education) or Christian/atheist. Some are Hindus raised in India, or Jews raised in Israel. Allow me to assure you that if you are one of these people; someone raised in your culture’s dominant faith, you just don’t get it.

I remember being one of exactly two Jewish kids in my middle school (in a town that is now very heavily Jewish, by the way). Every year it’s, Do I sing Silent Night in the choir, or do I single myself out by not singing or by objecting, or do I make a non-statement statement by merely pretending to sing? (Me, I’m a single myself out kinda gal, and my mom was really supportive about speaking to the school about their Christian agenda). When the class project is making Christmas trees, you have to raise your hand if you want to make a menorah instead (so that everyone knows who the Jews are, of course). Or maybe you have to raise your hand and ask if you can please make something else instead.

So you grow up knowing I am not one of these people. I am not part of this culture. I don’t fit in. Which, okay, who wants to fit in? Kids do. And tired adults do. Do you know how exhausting it can be to constantly have to explain, No, that’s not me/us, don’t assume I’m part of your frickin mainstream?

The Radical Right that is promoting their ridiculous War on Christmas doesn’t believe there is a real war. They don’t believe they are being oppressed. But they know there’s lots of political capital in having an angry base. They know they have to keep the Right angry, and it’s hard to convince people they’re angry when they run the country, control the media and the meme, and own all the businesses. So they created a war on gays and gay marriage. But the thing is, despite swings up and down, they’re losing that war, and they’re losing a bit of their base by fighting it. So they needed a new war, They needed one where the base wouldn’t erode. And who will walk away from a War to Save Christmas? I mean!

It’s easy to convince people that they’re oppressed if you hammer the point hard enough. My experience is that Left-leaning, free-thinking people who were raised as part of a majority are pretty clueless as to what it means to be made to stand in the cultural corner. And that’s the Left! So it’s not at all hard to whip up the Right.

See, it’s nice that the culture is more inclusive. We talk all the time about how it’s right and just and so on, but it’s also just nice. Nice to go into a store and have them say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” and think they’re saying it to me, instead of thinking, “They don’t mean me” or “They’re leaving me out again” and getting exhausted. Again.

John Gibson and Jerry Falwell probably don’t mean to make little kids feel left out. They probably don’t mean to embarrass kids by singling them out as different in school, just because they’re Jewish or Hindu. They just want their little war to drum up the base. But that’s what they’ll do. They’re not just teaching “the Right” to be angry about Christmas. They’re teaching parents. And those parents will teach their kids, and those kids will go to school and fight their frickin War by belittling other kids. That’s what bigotry is.