Pagans for Kerry

There are as many important reasons Pagans should vote against George W. Bush as for John Kerry.

BY: Starhawk

Being a Pagan is more than wearing occult jewelry and burning the right incense for every occasion. It's about how we live our lives, how we give more than lip service to the earth, but actually care for her, protect her, and honor the spark of the Goddess in every human being. Many Pagans, like most people of sense, would probably prefer not to be political, to focus our time and energy on our own spiritual development, on creating wonderful rituals for our families and communities, on tending our own gardens. But the issues facing us right now are too deep and profound to allow us that luxury.

This upcoming election is necessarily a referendum on the Bush administration's policies and performance. The Republicans have had four years in office, with control of the legislature, to implement their ideas-and we can judge the results. They are dismal. Iraq is a mess that daily costs the lives and futures of civilians and soldiers alike, and the justifications for getting into this mess are now clearly revealed as lies and deception. The veterans who return are met with cutbacks in medical care and services. The U.S. economy is a mess, with a huge loss of jobs, a spiraling national debt, 45 million Americans lacking health insurance, public health and education systems crumbling, and the country polarized. Meanwhile, new information alerts us to the fact that global climate change is progressing faster than expected and may rapidly tumble into a self-reinforcing cycle of destruction. The ice caps are melting, hurricanes ravage the Caribbean, the North Sea ecosystem is in a state of collapse. The need for massive, globally coordinated action to limit our use of fossil fuels and make the transition to a new energy economy is urgent.

All of these are good reasons for rejecting Bush. But here are five specifically Pagan reasons:

1. Torture: Those of us who identify as Witches, who remember the Burning Times and the torture of the Inquisition, should reject policies that have legitimize and institutionalize torture--in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, in other unnamed facilities around the globe--and should reject the Bush administration's undercutting of international treaties that also safeguard our troops. We should also reject the whole apparatus of secret detentions and denunciations and attacks on civil liberties that go with it.

2. Safety for ourselves and our communities: Bush has allied himself with forces who are determined to make this a "Christian" country, who have no love or tolerance for our spiritual traditions.

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