I'm going to talk about something that's been in the news and blogs for the last week or so. Someone that was trusted, a musician, and a Pagan, is accused of possessing child pornography. Pretty hefty charges. And from everything I've been seeing around the web, apparently people felt he was a little creepy, but really didn't do anything about it.
Let that sink in a minute. People around him knew something was off, but did nothing.
Now, I'm NOT blaming or pointing fingers at anyone. But I'm confused how anyone can be around someone, feeling that creep feeling, and not do anything. This goes for mundane and magickal life. People like to give others, especially prominent people, the benefit of a doubt. I think we need to stop and think about that for a while.
As Pagans, we are pretty open, both with our energy and our lives. Many of us live with a village mentality when going out with other Pagans. Hell, many of us live with a village mentality when we go out with our kids, period. We need to be more cautious and speak up when something doesn't feel right. If it's a person in charge, right down to a new person...we HAVE to speak up. As a Pagan community, we are not immune to predators. But we are a bit lax in doing anything about it.
That being said, we have had people in our local community that have had poor behavior. One was found creeping around children and harassing females. People spoke up and the elders dealt with the issue. Our local community (full disclosure: I'm an elder in it) does a good job in taking care of problems when they arise, from our members speaking up to action being taken. It's not an easy task, and you have to weed out the occasional "we don't like person x so we are going to make trouble for her/him" from the real threats, but sitting back and waiting for something to happen isn't an option. We need better methods for dealing with this in larger crowds, and we definitely need to be aware that we as a Pagan population are not immune.
It's time to stand up. We can't be silent any longer.
