Political and social activism form the core of many a Reclaiming witch’s practice. A main impetus of the tradition’s formation was the desire to reunite spirituality and activism, a union deliberately put asunder by many neo-Pagan traditions. From envelope-stuffing for local school board candidates to getting arrested at the RNC and DNC, activism is at the heart of what many of us do.
One of my day jobs is for the Minnesota Legislature. Not one individual legislator or party, but the body as a whole. Because ours is a nonpartisan office, and because I made certain agreements when I took the position, I am barred from overt political action. For the past several years, I’ve made my peace with this.
But this year, there are amendments.
Minnesota voters will see two proposed constitutional amendments on our ballots come November 8. One would confine the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. The other would require every would-be voter to present a photo ID.
I have Very Strong Opinions about these ballot measures. But, technically, I’m not allowed to tell you what those opinions are. I can tell you that I’m in a committed relationship with a member of the same sex. I cantell you that many of my friends are in like situations, and others are in relationships of one man and two women, two men and two more men, one man and one don’t-confine-me-in-your-binary-gender-boxes. Many of whom might like to get married.
I can tell you that in one of my other day jobs, I routinely encounter people working two and three jobs where a single attendance violation puts them at risk of termination and people without permanent addresses. People without a single thought of election fraud in their heads, but for whom the restrictions and challenge processes of the proposed ID amendment would form as daunting an impediment against ballot-casting as physically barring the door in front of them.
You may draw your own conclusions from that.
I love my job. I love the work I do and the people I do it with. And I take the oaths of impartiality I swore to my employer very seriously. In the past, I’ve reconciled my distaste for about half of the documents that cross my desk by seeing myself as donning the mantle of Sacred Witness, an important role in our local Reclaiming community, especially in oracle work. The Sacred Witness attends fully and makes space for whatever work is coming into being, without judgment or critique. I see myself the same way in this job: I make space for democratic process to flower, even when its fruits taste bitter to me.
But these amendments stir such passions in me. Such intense reactions about what is and is not the just and compassionate direction for our state to proceed. I feel these things as a queer person and Pagan. And I find my hands tied—but I also find myself suspecting that I have allowed fear of losing this amazing position convince me that my options were more limited than they truly are.
And so I come to you, the readers of this blog, with a question. A hope. Because I find myself unable to see the way clear in this situation. I hope we might start a conversation here, and come to a conclusion or two, about a situation that I suspect catches a great many of us at one time or another: how do any of us do it? How do we maintain loyalties to two conflicting, if not completely contradictory, pulls? What do we do when our consciences want two things they might not be able to have at the same time?
When the path splits in two before us, how do we make a third way?