A Pagan Republican Comes Out of the Broom Closet

A Pagan Republican Comes Out of the Broom Closet
By Sarah M. Pike
October 15, 2009

Aspiring New York City councilman Dan Halloran is a practicing Neopagan, more specifically a Heathen, devoted to the religious practices and beliefs of early Northern Europe. But the oddest thing of all, to many people, is that he’s not an anti-war, enviro-activist, free-loving liberal—he’s a Republican.
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Halloran’s campaign Web site counters the assumption that Neopagans dress and act differently from other Americans. Photos on his official site show a clean-cut and conservatively dressed Halloran speaking out against “Obamacare,” supporting youth baseball programs and the Boy Scouts, and presenting a Police Officer of the Month Award. In contrast, the Queens Tribune story played up his alter identity as Pagan priest by running a photo from his page on the “Paganspace” Web site that shows a blue-robed Halloran kneeling before his ritual tools.
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“I believe in God,” said Halloran in an October 1 story in the Queens Chronicle: “Faith is a cornerstone of my life.” Responding to his critics, he described his Catholic upbringing and avoided discussing his Pagan identity, calling for his opponent “to disavow the Queens Tribune’s attack on religion. I am running a campaign on the issues.” But Halloran has another history that seemingly contrasts to his current political campaign: an earlier stint in the New York Police Department, and his career as an attorney. He received his BA from the City University of New York in History and Anthropology, and conducted archaeological field research in Ireland on the Norman and Viking periods. Like many Neopagans, who tend to read more and have higher levels of education than the average American, Halloran was drawn to the mythology and lore of ancient cultures that exposed him to an entirely different religious world than the one in which he was raised. Halloran’s particular fascination with ancient Germanic culture led him to Heathenism, a branch of contemporary Paganism devoted to the beliefs and practices of Northern European cultures.

Like other Neopagans, Heathens usually interact with a pantheon of deities and celebrate the changing seasons. Many forms of Heathenism are also linked to ethnic European identities and draw from ancient Northern European texts for inspiration. Adherents of Theodism worship deities, the land, and ancestors and value honor, oath-taking, family, and tribe. Common ritual practices in Theodism include feasting, seasonal celebrations, and animal sacrifice; all done as closely as possible to the reconstructed traditions of ancient Normans. If feminist Witchcraft with its emphasis on egalitarianism and individual spirituality is at one end of the Neopagan spectrum, then Theodism’s hierarchy and tribalism is at the other. According to the Pagan Census (2003), conducted by sociologist Helen Berger and her colleagues, followers of Norse religion tend to be slightly less politically liberal and slightly less supportive of women’s issues than the general Neopagan population.
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http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1907/a_pagan_republican_comes_out_of_the_broom_closet

Supporting those who want you persecuted.

They are a pretty small minority of pagans. I'd even venture to say that hard-core repubs and conservatives are a small percentage even of them.

Some really just don't get it, I fear. When you rebel against a tribal sky daddy, you aren't necessarily supposed to replace him with another tribal sky daddy. C'est la vie. (Oh, I just figured why, see below)

But if he is proactive in beating back the creeping hand of fundie christianity (which is NOT christianity, but I'm not sure we have found the word for it yet. I suspect it might be associated with that golden bull they were praying over in Wall Street) I will cheer him on for being out and in their face.

On edit: The dirty little secret tho: Some (and I qualify that heavily because I know people in several of these groups) branches of Teutonic religion including Odinism and Asatru tend to attract very tribal, almost white supremacist types. They gave up Yahweh for Odin because Odin is of their tribe and blood, so to speak. Most pagans are pretty eclectic. I tend to skirt around those who hew exclusively to northern european tribal religion.

we neopagans are very very very diverse and its like saying Muslim or Christian to cover every single believer.

Argued with more than a few Wiccan white supremacists, as well. I'm not going to class the entire religion on the basis of some hammer-toting fuckwits.

However, it's easy to mix up "regular" Asatru with racist Asatru. The regular brand is pretty exclusive, as put upthread, tribal. In this it's no different from Judaism or Hinduism, "These are our gods and our traditions, for our people" sort of thing... But since most other Neopagan faiths tend towards complete inclusiveness, such a stance can often be taken for "racism" from that vantage point.

Wiccans, Thelemites, Golden Dawn, racist Norse vs non-racist Norse, New Age, Modern American Voodoo, Temple of Set, Illuminates of Thanateros, Druids, Discordians, nondenominational polytheists, spiritual Satanists, the Temple of Psychic Youth, Moorish Calvary Church, etc.

So snobby urban christians trashed non-christians following old local customs (Gr. 'ethea', Lat. 'Mores') as country hicks. :)

No problemo, traditional 'paganism' is essentially local, with huge variety from village to village, tribe to tribe. Localism does not mean not being open to influences from other locations, quite the contrary.

Obviosly neopaganism maintains some of the local attitude (locality not being only geographic) and sees diversity as richness, not as division as universal religion like christianity does.

Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English hethen, from Old English hǣthen; akin to Old High German heidan heathen, and probably to Old English hǣth heath
Date: before 12th century

1 : of or relating to heathens, their religions, or their customs
2 : strange, uncivilized

But the term "pagan" is about on par with the term "Abrahamist"

She lead voodoo workshops. She is pretty strange and may be an exception.

Some of the Discordians I know consider themselves to be pagan, but they are also occultists.

I know quite a few riech wing pagans.

the number of white supremacists. Not that they were the majority, thankfully, there were still plenty of enlightened folks that hated the Racist Theodist types.