Chymical Wedding

An ad trying to tell me that Wicca and Paganism are spiritually dangerous, courtesy of an evangelical Christian website, showed up earlier on my LJ. I’ve sent an e-mail as well as an ad feedback form about it to LiveJournal, and that e-mail follows. I may be the only one here who cares about this, but it really does offend me that this could show up on my blog.
Avete LJ Engineers & Sales Department,

I’ve been using LJ for years now, using various usernames (including fraterachdae and my current hermeticalchemy). I was at first a little upset to see ads appearing, but soon thought better of it; I understand why it’s necessary and respect the decision to run ads without pop-ups. However, tonight I caught an ad on my LJ which outright offended me. I’m not generally one to crusade in matters that don’t directly affect me, so believe me when I say that writing this e-mail is something of an extreme measure for me. I already sent an ad feedback form, but feel that I need to make sure that this matter is addressed.

The ad in question was for www.expagans4christ.com and I don’t mind telling you that I am a Wiccan and an occultist. Regardless of my spiritual leanings, however, I do not believe that it is the right of anybody to proselytize in MY online “home”, or anybody else's for that matter. If Christians want to get ads for websites like this, that's their business and I fully support their right to choose to do so. However, I did not make that choice and I cannot support advertisements on my own blog which cut against everything I feel to be sacred. Imagine, for example, a Jew who sees on his or her LiveJournal and advertisement which states, “Jews killed our Lord! Read interviews on the dangers of Judaism!” It's the same thing, and I would be equally offended to see any such thing (or an anti-Christian ad, for that matter).

It is not in my power to tell you what to do with your own website, but I think that it would be more than a sign of good faith if you ceased running such ads on the LiveJournals of people of non-fundamentalist and dominionist faiths. I can say for certain that most Buddhists, atheists, Neopagans, Voudoun, Jews, Theosophists, and mainstream Christians would be bothered if such a thing showed up on their own blogs, where they shared their intimate thoughts and spiritual experiences with their friends. The only other thing I can say is that there is a rather large population of Neopagans, Hermetics, occultists, Theosophists and other members of “unorthodox” religions and spiritual systems using LiveJournal. We're there because it’s a good place to network, a useful and enjoyable service, and generally protective of our right to talk about darn near anything we want without censorship. I think that I can speak for many others when I say that I don't want my enjoyment to be cut into by religious bullying, even if it is just in my margin.

In Peace Profound,
Nicholas Graham

P.S.: I’m copying this as an open letter to my LJ and will be following up there with whatever information I get from your response.