Are you In or Out?

[habibidancer]

Are you in or out of the broom closet, that is.

What I mean is, are you willing to let others know you are pagan or wiccan, etc?

For many many years I've considered myself "out of the broom closet". The coven I was in had done interviews with local newspapers after all. We did public rituals. We held classes like Wicca 101 that were open to public registration.

But recently I realized that I wasn't really "out". Why do I think that? Because I never said anything in public. I didn't want to "rock the boat" or make the people around me uncomfortable.

Then I realized that others were making ME uncomfortable with their constant christian comments, lectures, sermons. Why was I hiding who I am when clearly others had no issue being excessively vocal in their religiousness?

Mind you, I am not and never will be an obnoxious "in your face" pagan, out to make sure everyone around me hates being around me. But I'm not going to hide who or what I am, who my family is, because I'm afraid of what "they" will think.

But, I think if christians can feel comfortable saying "praise the lord" then I should be able to feel comfortable saying "thank the Goddess" or whatever.

As a friend of mine said, Christianity is not the supreme religion of the world, by which all other religions should be measured. I'm tired of being "measured up" to xtianity and am not going to stand for it anymore.

I'm also not interested in hiding "in the dark". Paganism has been around for millennia now. Modern Pagans have been "OUT" and public for decades. As far as I'm concerned, xtianity doesn't "measure up" to paganism so I'm not going to let xtian culture dictate how I live my life.

We pagans have our own culture, lets celebrate it, be proud of it.

I am "out" and proud.

[Lady Motevia]

I really hate how this board only notifies certain posts.

Anyway, I'm definitely "out of the broom closet". I was in for a long time and in recent years I've gone through the same thing you have. I'm not an obnoxious pagan, either, but I'm not about to hide what I am. I was working as a file clerk for a law firm in Chicago and we had all of the normal Christian holidays off. I always hid my pentacle while I was at work when I first started. That is, until everyone else in the firm took Good Friday off. I figured that since no one else was going to be there, I had no reason to take my pendant off. Well, that was when my boss showed up. After that point, any pagan-related websites were banned under "occult"- even Witchvox! My coworkers spread emails throughout the huge office about God and Jesus and blah blah blah, and yet I couldn't even look up a Witchvox article. Later I was called to my boss's office to be yelled at for "inappropriate computer usage". You'd think I was looking at pornography or something! It wasn't long before everyone else there knew that I was not Christian and I was very happy the day I finally left. Since then, I really have no cared what other people think of me wearing my pentacle or saying "thank the Gods/Goddess" around other people. It's their problem; not mine.

[Pandora]

^ That's completely awful what happened to you but I guess in the end it was for the good. Sometimes you have to stand for what's right, and you have to stand alone.

I would say I'm in the broom closet as of now. I was raised in a very Catholic household, but my mother stopped taking me to church after the scandals with the priests began. Now she doesn't push her Christianity on me, but she has very firm beliefs. She knows that I don't believe what she does, but she doesn't know what I believe. I'm scared to tell her, because she's very narrow-minded, especially when it comes to religion, and I'm sure she would find a way to twist the good things I try to say about Wicca into something horrible. Well, mom, your religion hijacked all my religion's holidays and tried to Christianize them. You're celebrating something stolen from the very thing you're going to try to tell me is wrong. It's very difficult to explain to people who are only willing to live in one train of thought. I'm 18 and technically a legal adult, but it's going to be a couple more years before I feel comfortable with breaking the news.
As for my friends, they all know I'm Wiccan and are totally good with it. My boyfriend knows and is very open-minded when it comes to religion; he is actually not a Christian anymore, and we are both on a soul-searching path together.
Its a difficult world to be a witch.

[darlingstrawberry]

I'm kind of on the same page as Nikki. I'm rather afraid about telling my family, because if I tell my parents, the whole extended family will find out through gossip. While I'm sure my parents would put up with it, there are others in my family who most definitely would not. However, many of my friends know, and a few teachers at school do, and everyone is generally pretty supportive.
But as for saying things in public? Broadcasting it like Christians do? I don't know if I'm that far out of the closet yet. I'm afraid that what happened to Lady Motevia will happen to me as well. That's never any good. Who knows, though? Maybe this school year will be a little different. Having a supportive group like this definitely makes it seem a little less daunting.

[Lady Motevia]

That's definitely what we're here for. I remember what it was like before I said "f--- it" and came out of the "broom closet." When I finally came out to my mother, she told my stepdad- who then let it slip to my ex-stepdad (who practically raised me and is still a big part of my life since he's still my sister's father. It's complicated). This guy then brought me down to my mother's basement and told me to make an ashtray levitate. He wasn't interested in any of the things I had to tell him about the God and Goddess or nature-based worship. He just tried to make a point that "magic does not exist". When my father found out about this, he got VERY upset and to this day wants to say a few choice words to my ex-stepdad. When I got married, my husband and I had a handfasting by the River. I still remember when my sister was on the phone with her father and he told her that if she took part in any of that "Wicca crap" during the ceremony, he would take her right out of the wedding.

[lorifiya]

That is so horrible, there are still way to many prejedices today, it's sad really.

I came out to my family, they didn't really say much and still don't. They kinda just think 'oh she's going though a phase.' My bf whom I love, we have talked about it but he's not much interested I what it's about he thinks it's a bunch of feminist crap, but he's come to understand it a bit better since we've been together and I've explained a few things, but he still has his moments. It's also hard for him since he's a roman catholic that truely belives because he had a vision but think god hates him.

[Lady Motevia]

That's tough, Lorifiya. My mother is the same way as your parents. She doesn't have one thing or another to say about it and seems to think that it's "just a phase" on my way to finding my own way back to God or whatever. She can think whatever she wants for all I care. I know what you mean about your boyfriend, though. My husband, who recently joined this forum (hi, honey!), seems to also think it's just feminist crap and isn't interested. He knows that I'm raising our daughter in the name of the Goddess and is cool with it, but at the same time if we had a son he wouldn't be so supportive of it.

[lorifiya]

Yeah, it's alot of old prejudcies that come from the church, due to it being so deep inbreed into people.

It's kinda like how deep 'the wizard of oz' is in the us entertainment. Cause my bf has never seen it, it was the most shocking thng I learned about him, and I give him alot of crap for never having seen it.

[darlingstrawberry]

That's a very good point, Lorifiya.
What's socially common gets so far ingrained in us that we don't even notice how deeply it affects us until our attention is called it to.
I just wish people were more open-minded.

[lorifiya]

it may happen but it might take awhile.

[Lady Motevia]

I agree. But what I really hate is that now with it becoming popular to hate "hipsters" all over the internet, anything that's not "mainstream" is now considered "hipster". So that means that a lot of people now refer to Paganism and Neopaganism as a "hipster" religion. Hardly anything about me would be considered to follow the "mainstream", so by all those accounts I should be considered a "hipster" because of how closed-minded people are.

[Pandora]

I'm currently dealing with parents who might literally push me out of the household if they knew my faith. I'm starting to make it clearer to them what I believe, and it's not working out so well. "You want to become a vegeterian? Why are you learning Tarot? Why do you want to learn about the weeds that grow in the yard?" They dismiss it as a "teenage liberal wacko" thing, and think it's just a phase.
I've been trying to learn about Wicca since the seventh grade. I just graduated from high school. Chalk that up to being afraid to say who I really am. That's a wonderful way to raise your child, in fear of having opinions and beliefs of their own. I don't know what to do. If I keep going forward, there are going to be some major fights and disrespectful things said about what I believe, and I'm just going to end up believing bad things about my parents.

[habibidancer]

I lived through all that too ladies. I kept it all silent and hidden. Then my mom and stepdad moved away and I was on my own here and could "come out" to friends.

It wasn't till 2003 (I was in my mid 30s) that I finally came out to my parents, and that's because I was getting married and we were having a full blown handfasting with a dozen people in the ritual and lots of the fun fancy witchy props. I do not recommend waiting till the ceremony rehearsal to let you xtian mom know that you are pagan. Fortunately for me, my mom is a graceful soul who did not throw a fit. she waited a week and then had a little chat with me on the phone. It's all worked out since then (though she still prays for my prodigal return).

as a fun side note: there were THREE video cameras set up to record our handfasting, all of them set up outside the circle. None of them recorded... one just shut off, two recorded 20 minutes of static. gotta love the powerful circle castings. Fortunately all the regular cameras worked.