A Wiccan by the name of Tammy Coers down in Shelbyville, Indiana is causing a bit of a stir in her neighborhood because she had the audacity to put a symbol of her religion, a pentagram, in her yard. Needless to say, this has prompted the usual amount of tolerance and understanding among some of her Christian neighbors that we’ve grown to expect:
“All of us that live out here are just beside ourselves. None of us like having this stuff in the yard,” the neighbor said. “When I see her outside, I come in and lock my doors and shut the TV off and shut my living room windows. She gives me the creeps.”
Many people have found the neighborhood an enjoyable place to live for several years, the woman added. True: Coers herself has lived in the same house for almost 13 years, although she is moving soon.
While the pentacle is a traditionally-recognized symbol, if it’s turned upside down, it can take on negative associations and is often connected with Satanism, and since its appearance, people in the neighborhood have been worried about the safety of everyone in their families, down to their pet cats. But Coers, a single, 37-year-old mother who has three pet cats of her own (none black) uses the symbol for protection from harm for herself and her two teenage daughters, 15 and 16.
“It’s just like a cross; not everybody has positive connotations to it...some have negative connotations, some are indifferent,” she said.
The rest of the newspaper article is a nice attempt at dispelling some of the common misconceptions about Wicca and the people who practice it. Though I doubt it’ll make much of a difference among the people who most need to read it it’s still cool of the newspaper to make the effort.
Posted on 09/29/2004 at 06:19 AM 
Wiccans, like everyone else, can still be assholes… no doubt about that.
And the papers will ALWAYS do whatever they can to go for some shock value ANY time they write about Pagans - especially close to Samhain. Back when I still identified myself as one, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Orange County (CA) Register blasting them for ignoring us the rest of the time and only “pulling us out of the broom closet to parade us around” near Hallowe’en, just to get the Christians all worked up. To my surprise, they published it, heh.
Posted on 10/02/2005 at 01:46 PM 
It is so sad to find people still subscribing to medieval superstition.
If we get this kind of reaction to a different belief in an allegedly enlightened society, I am beginning to understand the depth of hostility that people in the Middle East harbor against the US.