This afternoon I watched the former head of the South Carolina Democratic Party claim that Christine O’Donnell was a fringe character because she “was a Witch,” which he screamed as if it was synonymous with pedophile. The left, returning to their Satanic Panic roots, has been trying hard to smear O’Donnell as insane because of her supposed association with Satanism or Wicca or Witchcraft or some combination of the three.

O’Donnell herself responded to the flap by not only doubling down on her highly dubious story, but implying that one of her critics on the right, Karl Rove, was himself a Satanist. Both sides of the political spectrum seems to take for granted that O’Donnell’s story of picnicking on a “Satanic altar” as part of her “dabbling” in Witchcraft to be true.

It isn’t. For the record, this is a real Satanic altar:

Yes, my friends, that’s a naked woman. A naked woman has historically been the “altar” of any Satanic group even before Anton LaVey formed his Church of Satan. References to this in literature, the works of Huysmans come to mind, had solidified this in occult circles for many years and Inquisitorial accounts of Satanism and The Black Mass are explicit about the need for a nude woman for these rites. While nowadays there are many non-LaVeyian Satanists, in the time frame O’Donnell’s supposed picnic happened one would have been hard pressed to find any Satanist other than LaVeyian, and if there’s not a naked woman involved it ain’t the Church of Satan!

Further, you’d also be hard pressed to find Satanists and Wiccans who associated with each other at that time. The Church of Satan is explicit in its denouncement of Wicca, even working in their disdain for Wiccans in their official rituals. With good reason it turns out, since Wiccans sided with Christians during the Satanic Panic to claim Satanists were indeed part of a world wide network of conspirators who committed horrible crimes. This forerunner to the 9/11 Truth movement, the so called Satanic Ritual Abuse movement, is still popular on the Internet, especially among the left and paleo-con falangists. O’Donnell claims that she was affiliated with Witches but had no idea Witchcraft, Wicca and Satanism were three different things?

Which all is just a quick way to point out that Christine O’Donnell’s whole story about dabbling in Witchcraft and Satanism and picnicking on altars and the rest  is a tall tale woven by a person who has no idea what she’s talking about.

But everyone is taking her seriously, and that’s the problem.

O’Donnell’s narrative is stolen from books like Michelle Remembers and is the same stance the right attacked Martha Coakley for having when she kept an innocent man in jail for years. People forget that the Satanic Panic destroyed lives, not of Satanists but of anyone accused by someone of being one. Most were innocent, as are the people O’Donnell’s smearing now, who were no doubt a couple of goths she hung around. If they existed at all.

Right now there is a growing number of right leaning Pagans, one was elected to office recently in Queens and is serving with distinction. O’Donnell is doing what leftist Wiccans have claimed the right does for years, falsely accusing Pagans in general of being Satanists and implying that Satanists are involved in criminality. The latter has been debunked by the F.B.I. and the former is not an example of center right thought, love of the Constitution and Freedom or strong moral fiber. Pagans on the right deserve to be as welcome in the Tea Party as everyone else, and O’Donnell, perhaps unwittingly, is undermining their ability to unite with fellow conservatives.

I was at the first (and second) Tea Party in Greenville, South Carolina. I am a supporter of many conservative groups, a proud Republican and a Pagan. O’Donnell and her supporters seem to take the same dim view Leftists do off my existence, which bothers me and should bother all people on the right.

At this point people have little choice but to support O’Donnell or accept a Marxist who has even been attacked by far left activists as too authoritarian. But the Tea Party could have, and should have, done better. In the next election they must because O’Donnell is not a lover of freedom or America, but a kook who disseminates Alex Jonesian fabrications designed to smear a significant number of Americans.

Is that what the Tea Party stands for?