Evangelicals forgot how badly witch hate worked for them in Salam last time
The Pagan Solidarity Alliance has torched Salem law enforcement for sitting on their hands. At the same time, a pack of Bible-thumping zealots went on a three-day crusade against witches, spiritual shops and ancestral altars.
Things kicked off on 26 October when the evangelical mob stormed the Psychic Fair and Witches’ Market, screaming abuse like it was a Sunday hobby. Not content with that, they marched into a local witchcraft shop the next day, vandalised private property and smeared some oily muck on an ancestral altar.
Then on 29 October, the fanatics expanded their little hate tour, targeting more businesses and sacred sites. They blocked doors, lobbed fluids about, and shouted every slur in their hymn book at shop owners and passersby.
Local police, apparently on a three-day tea break, handed out nothing but warnings. Not a single arrest. Not a single charge. The Pagan Solidarity Alliance rightly pointed out that if this happened to any mainstream church, the perpetrators would have been dragged off in cuffs before anyone could say “hate crime.”
“These coordinated attacks are not expressions of free speech. They are hate crimes rooted in religious intolerance and bigotry,” said the Pagan Solidarity Alliance. “They are deliberate attempts to terrorise a minority faith community through acts of vandalism, desecration, and psychological harm.”
The Alliance is demanding that the City of Salem stop playing nice with religious bigots and do its job. That means a proper investigation into all three incidents, actually applying laws against trespass and harassment, and treating the whole mess as the hate crime spree it clearly is.
They want the city to make a public statement affirming that Pagan and Earth-based faiths have the same rights as any church on the corner. Police officers, some of whom clearly need remedial education, should be forced to sit through training on civil liberties, religious diversity and how not to enable religious thuggery.
The group is also calling for proper police protection during a scheduled public ritual on Salem Common at 5.00pm on 31 October, something the chief of police previously promised but might now need reminding about.
This is not just some local flare-up. The Alliance said this is part of a broader trend across the US, where non-Christian faiths are being targeted while law enforcement nods off. After all, the Christian Nationalists have control of the White House. In Salem, of all places, where witch persecution is literally in the tourist brochures, this kind of religious intolerance is especially grotesque.
“We affirm that Pagan, Witchcraft, and Earth-based spiritual communities are valid, vibrant, and integral parts of America’s religious landscape,” the group said. “Intimidation, vandalism, and desecration of sacred spaces are not isolated incidents. They are assaults on religious freedom, community safety, and the constitutional promise of equality.”
To the Pagan community, the Alliance said: stay sharp, document everything, and pursue justice through collective pressure. To the public, they gave a reminder that religious freedom means sod all if it only applies to the majority.
“We will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated. We will stand together in courage, compassion and solidarity until justice is done,” they said.
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