While I’m sure you’re receiving boatloads of hatemail from neoconservatives regarding your “View From Another School” for Friday, Oct. 15, I’m writing to express my disbelief at the profound ignorance of the writer.
Anyone with at least half a brain can see that Christine O’Donnell is a nightmare candidate for the GOP.
She’s had a history of financial problems and irresponsibility, a questionable view on masturbation and sexual health and has no public record of policy decisions that voters can look to for information about her leanings on key issues.
She’s a fluff candidate using social issues (poorly) to energize the far-right voter, who was going to vote for her anyway, if they were going to vote at all.
It’s fairly clear that O’Donnell has never been involved with witchcraft at all, or she’d know that a “satanic altar” is not a part of the Wiccan religion.
She’d also know that a sacred space like an altar is not something to be “picnicked” upon, even at such a suggestive time as midnight.
It’s much more likely that she was taken for a ride by some unscrupulous cad who fed her lines about “satanic” practices to try and get in her pants.
However, the writer makes much of the “witchcraft” debacle, saying, “It’s hard to say which is worse, though. Witch or Nazi?” Seriously?
The United States was founded upon the idea of separation of church and state. Though the Founding Fathers originally intended the exclusion of religion from government to allow Christians to practice whatever flavor of Christianity they wanted, the effect of church and state being separate has been much more far-reaching.
Denizens of the United States can practice whatever faith they wish, so long as others are not harmed. Each one of us has the right to believe (or not believe) as they see fit.
The tone the author takes is one of derision toward the Wiccan religion, which is undeserving of such misplaced criticism. Certainly people are entitled to their opinions; that’s another part of what’s great about America.
However, people also have a right to be mocked for their ignorance.
If Mr. Thompson honestly feels that the nature-honoring Earth Mother religion of Wicca can be compared in the same breath to an oppressive, genocidal political regime, he’s just as deluded as Ms. O’Donnell.
Erin Walden
Geology graduate student
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