As a pagan, I think the tea-party movement's pretty cool

As a liberal Pagan, I think I have enough in common with the Tea Party Movement to engage in respectful, serious, and practical dialogue about how to solve the problems facing our nation. Our civic pride and values are very similar. We love liberty, America, and a strong economy. We simply don’t always agree with how to preserve those things.

What do I really think about the Tea Party Movement? I think they have interesting ideas, ones that need to be discussed, debated, and taken seriously nationwide. The Tea Party is a corrective action taken against the lack of public discourse about the direction of our country. Politics was once the dinner table conversation of America. Now, we so readily accept all “news” as entertainment that we bypass those posing as objective reporters and go straight to the clown-pundits: Coulter, Colbert, Beck, and Stewart.

I sympathize with the problems the Tea Party has had with the media, with fringe elements, and with being taken seriously. Pagans have been dealing with those issues since the ‘60s and could offer a few pointers, if they’d care to listen. The Modern Pagan Movement is grappling with how to form loose unions in which to promote the interests of our very different autonomous Pagan groups without infringing on their liberties or imposing values on them from the outside. We as a religious movement are deeply engaged in the same issues as the Republic in which we stand. We like tea, we like parties, and we could learn from each other. We should talk.