In the past two weeks, the uproar over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been immense. And with the supposed fixes being signed shortly after the law, itself, reaction on both sides of the political spectrum has been swift and fierce. On the left, you have groups claiming this law allows religious discrimination. On the right, you have people saying religious freedoms don’t need to be fixed.
And then, out in left field, come the Wiccans.
The day the fixes were signed, a Wiccan High Priest claimed the Indiana RFRA allowed Wiccans to follow their religious beliefs without fear of consequences, including the right to dance on the state Capitol steps nude. Curious, I decided to ask Anna Knipp, a Wiccan (commonly referred to as a Witch) I’ve known for more than ten years, how she felt about the law and about the claims. She gave me the real scoop, at least as far as her beliefs and what the law will allow.
I first asked her to explain Wicca to me.
“Wicca is a religious practice that is centered around the Earth and the elements therein. It centers around a god and a goddess. Instead of just one celestial, all-knowing being, there are two that balance each other out…. (T)he first rule any aspiring Wiccan learns is the Wiccan rede, which is ‘An ye harm none, do as you will.’ There’s the Three Fold Law which, by the same school of thinking, anything you do, be good or bad, is going to come back to you three times, or three fold.”
After a few minutes of discussing the specifics of Wicca, I finally managed to steer the conversation to the Indiana RFRA. When asked about what she thought of Governor Mike Pence’s defense of the RFRA, that it doesn’t give people a license to discriminate, that it is just a “balancing test,” she said she “didn’t think he was incorrect.” She explained that she thought the RFRA was just a way to make what she called “middle grounds,” companies that aren’t mom and pop stores but aren’t large nationwide chain stores more “legislatable.”
Knipp continued:
“I think people are taking it way out of proportion. I don’t think it had anything to do with discrimination. People are borrowing trouble in my opinion. They are looking for reasons to chomp at the bit.”
And when asked about the Indiana High Priest, she said that she thinks he has a “very loud voice,” and he “is looking for a fight. He’s saying things to catch attention that don’t necessarily hold true. I don’t think that Wicca is ‘carte blanche’ about what your marriage options should be. You still, as a Wiccan, have to fall within the confines of state and federal government laws.”
She finishes by saying that she thinks we need to look at the religious freedoms within reason. And as to his claim about dancing naked on the Capitol steps:
“I think he’s going to get arrested for public indecency and trespassing.”
We continue talking about the dangers that “aspiring Wiccans” face when it comes to misinformation, specifically making sure to verify what a person claiming to be a Wiccan Priest or Priestess uses to make sure the information is accurate. As Knipp said, “For all you know, he could be a coven of one,” and making stuff up.
