Decius wrote:

I recall when I was in high school we wrote a play which contained the words "that sucks!" We performed the play for students and parents, who mostly seemed to enjoy it. The next morning we were informed that the school had received widespread complaints from parents about references to oral sex in our play. We had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

This same thing happened to me. I got in trouble for saying "You suck!" (not to a teacher) and was somewhat aghast that anyone a) cared and b) thought that it was worth censoring. If I'd wanted to indicate that that son of a bitch sucked something specific, you can be sure I would have given more detail.

If I did not intend to offend you, then what I said was not offensive.

This isn't really true. Offensive is offensive regardless of intent. Nonetheless, your point remains, which is that the punishment or degree to which you ought to be maligned for such action is dependent on motive.

I think it's kind of tasteless to hang a witch in effigy, precisely because of the history we have in this country of murdering people who were accused of practicing witchcraft, usually as an easy way of removing independent minded, non-conforming people from the community. As you state, I don't at all see it as being hateful towards the Wicca community unless it was intended to be such. It's two separate issues.

There's nothing wrong with practicing Witches making note of this as a way of educating people, certainly. "Hey, you know, we're aware that you weren't really directing this at us, but this is who we are and what we do, and we'd prefer if people didn't keep associating with witches in this way."

That's an adult response.

Crying "Hate Crime! Hate Crime!" is a sure way to make yourself and your community look unreasonable and reactionary, not to mention undermine the notion (the validity of which is certainly open to question) of a hate crime in the first place.

RE: Halloween decoration or hate crime?