How to Talk with the Non-Pagan Press

Lots of Pagan sites are talking about a magickal showdown with some Christian spiritual warriors over the District of Columbia. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the thoroughly hyperlinked details.

Here Hecate, who helped start this particular rolling, says some valuable things about framing the issue when talking with non-Pagans.

When talking to the press, framing matters. Your message is that local Pagans, whose heritage goes back to some of the world’s first democracies and who are soldiers, police, fire fighters, doctors, teachers, business owners, parents, and citizens, are standing up for traditional American values including tolerance and religious freedom. Your group will be doing that by [gathering and reading the Constitution, collecting canned food for people of all religious backgrounds who have been hit by the bad economy, chanting and praying, whatever.] You’re saddened that one group of Americans would attack other Americans over their religions. You hope to remind America of the religious toleration that our Founders believed was such an important American value.

Your message is NOT that Pagans don’t worship Satan, eat babies, etc. Repeat: your message is NOT about what Pagans don’t do.

She is a lawyer by trade and just might know something about the practice of rhetoric, y’know? (Many of the famous Pagan rhetoricians, guys like Quintilian, were—at times—lawyers, although the profession was structured differently then.)

To use the language of classical rhetoric, she is arguing the stasis of definition. In contemporary political rhetoric, it’s part of what we call “controlling the narrative” or in other words making your side look good, reasonable, ethical, in tune with enduring American values. etc.

And thanks for the mention in the blog post! I am all for material spirituality.

3 thoughts on “How to Talk with the Non-Pagan Press

  1. Non-Pagans always ask me how we worship or practice our religion. Agreed that we must avoid talking about what we do not do. Instead, it is helpful to say some of the positive things that we DO practice and believe… such as, worship of a Goddess and God who are like our divine parents. We should stress that we have ethics, such as the Nine Virtues or the Rede. We might also say that we hold Nature as sacred, and compare this belief to that of other, more well-known religions, such as Native Americans. Give the readers and viewers lots of common ground. We wish for equality and justice. We wish to raise our children in a positive environment. Joe and Josephine Average may relate to these statements moreso than saying that most Pagans have white-collar jobs or are well-educated. This has worked well in the past for me, and for groups I’ve been involved with. The part about feeling saddened over one group of Americans attacking another is brilliant.

  2. Dana Corby

    I’ve been saying all along that this is a civil rights matter, not a theological debate. We have gotten nowhere, and will continue to get nowhere, with trying to convince Christian exclusivists that we’re good people with a harmless religion and they should therefore let us alone. Our only talking point is that discrimination is against the law. And if they say “We’ll just change the law,” the best response is “Good luck with that. In the meantime you’re breaking the law and have about 3 seconds before I call the cops.” Which is, I concede, hard to do in the middle of a confrontation!

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