I gave up thinking of my country, the United States as particularly progressive some years ago. Today I found one more reason to discount that claim: South Africa has a Wiccan member of Parliament.
Just for the record, the number of Wiccan members of the US Congress is zero. No member of the US House of Representatives nor the US Senate identifies himself as any form of neopagan. Wikipedia gives a neat breakdown of the current religious demographics.
This is a guy after my own heart. He does not use the word "witch" or "witchcraft" to describe his beliefs, precisely because he understands what those words mean in his country. "In South Africa, a witch is someone who comes into your house, kills your children and cuts off their genitalia." That is a witch. Thus, it would be foolish to call himself one, as that clearly is not what he does.
And I love his final quote in the article: "I just think it's very arrogant of white pagans in South Africa to push for rights they know will be detrimental to the majority. It would be ideal if we could change the perception of what witchcraft is."
Maybe it is zero only because any who might be pagan are afraid to say so – pagans, people who are pagon+ another religion, and paganism in general all seem to be discriminated against in this land of so called “religious freedom.”
I agree Linda. I doubt if anyone calling themselves a pagan would even make it on the ballot. Unfortunately prejudice in many forms is alive and well in this great country of ours.
Ditto & double ditto. I have had my share of prejudice lately upon moving my residence & business to a rather Christian part of the country. Southern Lancaster County. I teach Tntric arts, Reiki, & a pagan form of spirituality. I grew up Pagan in Europe and was never persecuted there. Here we recently had threaat to shut down my business by a local zoning clown. We now are forced to pay extra for a variance, etc. etc. No one else in my township has had to do so. Just me. I’ve had this business for 22 years and never had a problem until now.