I was at work tonight talking to some of my coworkers and we were talking about some of the things I saw as a police officer. One of the nurses pipes up and goes, "I had a friend whose sister was a cop... she said the craziest call they ever went on was this naked lady running out in her yard covered in blood... turns out it was some sort of Wiccan ritual and they were killing a baby inside the house"
I instantly found myself getting defensive and had to calmly explain to her that that's not what Wiccans practice (she had no idea I'm Wiccan)... another one of my nurse friends, who is a Buddhist, happened to hear it and his jaw dropped. To give the girl some credit, she had no idea what Wicca was or knew the difference between it and Satanism (she is pretty sheltered by her own terms), so I think it was good to explain to someone who had the wrong impression of Wicca what it really is (not killing babies and all that crap).
We live in a fairly large pagan community here... half of the city are Christians, and the other half are pagans... so I guess it just shocked me that the stereotypes are still heavy here in certain areas. Especially in the area she was talking about the incident happening... it's a very small town about ten minutes from here and almost everyone is pagan... there's tons of pagan stores than line the streets... it just surprised me a little.
So what are your typical responses to the whole "we kill babies and eat their souls for breakfast and dance naked around the bonfire having orgies flying on broomsticks" attitude that some people have? How do you deal with the stereotypes?
Most of the time, I think just by explaining things, people get a better idea of what it is... but there are other people who absolutely refuse the explanation and will think what they want no matter what.