Reading through the news today, I noticed an odd story that ends up painting at least one corner of the online Pagan world as lacking in ethical common sense. It regards a woman, Spokane resident Gypsy Lawson, who was convicted of smuggling a rhesus macaque monkey from Thailand.

“Gypsy Lawson took the rhesus macaque monkey on a flight from Thailand to Los Angeles in the United States. The 29-year-old drugged it with sleeping pills and hid it under her blouse during the trip. A month later she bragged about the monkey she called Apoo to a shop assistant who then called police.”

Seems pretty cut and dried, but there was an interesting wrinkle to the story. Seems that Ms. Lawson is a Pagan and turned to a local Pagan e-list for magical/energetic “help” in smuggling the monkey out of Thailand.

“On their way back, Ogren reportedly emailed an online witches and pagan community asking for “last-minute energy” to help them smuggle the animal.”

Doing some more digging, I found a Spokesman Review article from July that gives a bit more detail regarding this online request.

“The following day, the indictment alleges, Ogren sent an e-mail to “NE Washington Witches and Pagans” at a Yahoo account “and asked for last-minute energy” to help them safely smuggle the monkey into the United States. “The Witches group replied by e-mail ‘consider it done,’ ” the indictment says.”

I can’t seem to find the list at Yahoogroups any longer, so perhaps the negative publicity forced it to close down, but a serious question remains: why didn’t these Pagans realize an illegal act was taking place and report it? Indeed, why did Witches and Pagans offer spiritual aid to enable this foolish woman to smuggle an animal into the country? Leaving aside the serious legal issues involved here, there are also moral and health-related issues involved in keeping primates as pets.

“If you try to keep them as pets you’re creating a mentally disturbed animal in 99.9 percent of the cases,” said Wright, director of conservation, science and sanctuary at the zoo. “The animal will never be able to fit in any other home. Never learn how to get along with other monkeys. And, more often than not, will end up with a lot of behavioral traits that are self-destructive.”

The article about Lawson’s conviction should have read “she bragged about the monkey she called Apoo to a local Pagan list, many members of that group then called the police”*, that it didn’t should cause us to examine why members of the Pagan community were enablers in this drama rather than heroes. As for “Apoo” the monkey, he is now safe at a primate rescue center in Oregon.

* This isn’t to say we should all become informants for any perceived or suspected violation of law, there is a range of justifiable opinion on certain ordinances, and such a thing as unjust laws, but the ethical course here was rather plain and obvious.

Now that the election season is (mostly) over, The Spokesman Review highlights a truly bizarre political press release from the Washington state gubernatorial battle. It seems state GOP chairman Luke Esser, trying to help candidate Dino Rossi, attacked a lawsuit against the conservative Building Industry Association of Washington that he felt was politically motivated. Here is where things get weird.

“Esser blasted a lawsuit against the conservative Building Industry Association of Washington, calling it an 11th-hour “legal circus” aimed at tainting Rossi and one of his biggest supporters. Singled out for special attention was attorney Knoll Lowney, who’s heading up the lawsuit. In trying to paint Lowney as a left-wing legal gadfly, Esser noted that Lowney’s sister-in-law is “a self-described ’stealth millionaire’ and ‘pagan’ who dressed herself and her children up as sea turtles during the WTO riots.” But wait, there was more. Esser, citing a 2001 newspaper story, also noted that Lowney’s brother and sister-in-law ‘used to participate in small Wiccan rites venerating the four elements fire, earth, air and, of course, water.’”

So Esser attacks the character of the brother and sister-in-law (who used to participate in “Wican rites”) of the lawyer who filed a lawsuit against one of Dino Rossi’s top financial backers? That has to be one of the most bizarre political retaliations I’ve ever seen. I’d call it religious bigotry, but it’s so absurd as to enter the realms of satire. Plus, Rossi lost his challenge to Democratic incumbent Gov. Christine Gregoire, so we can safely laugh at this pathetic attempt to stir up conservative (and, I assume, Christian) outrage (the columnist also points out that few people in Washington, particularly Olympia, are going to bat an eye at Wiccans).

While this attack was ultimately toothless and sad, it does point to a growing willingness by certain conservative politicians to see an opponent’s adherence (or a family member’s adherence) to a minority religion as something to exploit. If Sarah Palin truly is the future of the Republican party, could we see the tactics and mindset of “spiritual warriors” injected increasingly into mainstream conservative politics? If so, it could poison the party to non-Christian conservatives for a generation, and help isolate “God’s Own Party” in an increasingly multi-religious world.

In the recent glut of Halloween/Samhain stories, two, though separated by thousands of miles of geography, stood out as sharing a similar theme. They both involved groups of alleged Pagan troublemakers, who may just be misunderstood instead of wicked. The first takes place in Australia, where a yearly Beltane/Halloween festival* in Victoria has gone private after having trouble with “trolls” the year before.

“…in 28 years there had never been a punch-up at the Mount Franklin Beltane gathering of witches – an event that has drawn up to 700 spell-casting Victorians … last year, a small group known as “the trolls” caused an upset by hanging headless dolls from trees and otherwise carrying on in a dark-hearted fashion. ‘There was a nasty element we’d never seen before, and it ended in a violent altercation, and has essentially ruined what was once a beautiful event,’ a high-profile witch, speaking anonymously, told The Sunday Age. ‘I mean, you’re meant to embrace the darkness in witchcraft, but you’re also meant to keep it in balance with the light. These guys were all about the darkness. It’s not like there were a lot of them but they’ve done a lot of damage.’”

There are so many things wrong, journalistically speaking, with this article. Including the reliance on a “high-profile” anonymous source, and failing to get the “trolls” side of the story. On the whole, it could very well be that some imperious white-lighter Witch “lord” got up the nose of some goth kids and picked the “violent altercation” alluded to anonymously. Sadly, the article doesn’t give us enough information to make a judgment either way. One of the more reasonable assessments of local tensions that the article provides comes from a Satanic store-owner.

“I grew up with witchcraft in the ’70s, when witchcraft and Satanism were one and the same. This was a time when the black arts were truly forbidden. Now it’s all about white light,” he said forlornly. “The practitioners of today almost go out of their way to remove the mystery and darker aspects of their craft.”

So were the “trolls” nasty violent brutes, or simply misunderstood kids raising the hackles of people who had a fixed idea of what their celebration should be? The article doesn’t really answer that question (though congrats to fellow Pagan blogger Caroline Tully on getting interviewed).

Meanwhile, back in America, a group of teenage hoodlums is Washington are giving a local Christian after-school program the vapors.

“Rainier Chapel’s youth group, ELIFE, is struggling to keep its participants. ELIFE leader Tom Warner said the problem lies with a disruptive group of teens who hang out in the park adjacent to the church during ELIFE activities. Warner said parents don’t want to bring their children to ELIFE because of those teens … Some of the teens outside chant Wicca spells, do drugs and drink alcohol, Warner alleges. “I feel like I’ve enabled a drug ring,” Warner said.”

Teen Witch drug addicts! Oh cripes! There is just one problem with Warner’s assertions, the cops haven’t found any evidence of it yet.

“Police Chief Joe Vukich said while his officers will keep an eye out for any illegal activity, his main goal is for his officers to befriend members of the group. If officers talk to them, maybe they can learn why they are loitering outside the church. “I told (my officer) he needs to hang out there and make friends with the kids and the pastor,” Vukich said. If there is indeed drugs or underage drinking, the police will act accordingly, Vukich said … “It’s possible we have a terrible drug problem out there. We do have a substance abuse problem in Rainier, Tenino and Bucoda,” Vukich said. ‘It’s also possible there isn’t a problem. Nevertheless, we’re trying to take a community approach. We don’t really know what the situation is.‘”

Is Warner concerned about drug-abusing Wiccans, or is he concerned with having competition? He is currently dispersing flyers claiming “the cops will be after you” if ELIFE attendees go outside and run around. Sounds more like a turf war, than concern over underage substance abuse. Perhaps these “Wiccan-chanting” teens are simply having some fun at ELIFE’s expense? If so, raising the stakes by calling the cops in will only make it more exciting for them. To bad the journalist didn’t try to interview any of these teens to get their side of the story, and find out what their real motivations are.

In each of these stories it is entirely possible that the antagonists are everything their opponents say they are: dark, drug-abusing, violent, hooligans. But we aren’t provided the resources to make an informed decision in either case presented here. This is a failure of basic journalism. Each article went for a more sensationalist story about outside forces of chaos intervening in something “good” (whether it was a Pagan gathering or a Christian after-school program), instead of giving us a more traditional assessment of each side’s take. Casualties of Halloween-season reportage, or lazy reporting?

* Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, so the seasonal holidays are normally reversed. Hence Beltane instead of Samhain.