Talk:LGBT issues and Wicca

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[edit] Neutral Wording

This article sounds like it's written on the subject of Wiccan views of homosexuality. Perhaps a more neutral wording would help. // Liftarn 13:49 Dec 16, 2002 (UTC)

[edit] Merged

The following has been merged from Talk:Neopaganism and homosexuality:

Many Dianic Wiccans are lesbians, extending their religious beliefs into everyday life.

I removed this because it is silly. 1) It is not noteworthy that someone would extend their religious beliefs into everyday life; 2) somehow, I doubt that these women are lesbians purely as a result of their religious convictions. - Montréalais

It's not completely impossible: monks have sworn chastity based on religious convictions, so it's not unheard of for sexual behaviour/orientation to be strongly influenced by religion. At the lighter end of the scale, a bisexual Dianic Wiccan might swear off men based on her religion, in the same way that a bisexual Catholic female might swear off women based on her religion. However this is all idle (if fun) speculation... -Martin

A principle is an idea; a principal is the chief person. Is it the principle of masculinity that's being removed, or is it the principal male being who gets left out? --Uncle Ed

I'm guessing, but I think it's the male principal - the Wiccan God. Other Wiccans believe in and worship both a God and a Goddess, so the Dianic Wiccans differ in this respect. That's what the original writer put anyway, so assuming sie knows what sie's talking about... -Martin
Ah, well since I believe in a God who is a "harmonized being of masculine and feminine characteristics" I had to ask. --Uncle Ed
I am a Wiccan and have always seen it as the male and female principle [sic]. - Montréalais

[edit] I don't understand

I don't understand this sentence: "There are probably around the same or greater percentage of homosexuals practicing traditional Wicca, as the percentage of homosexuals in the population at large." Can someone clear it up? Exploding Boy 04:08, Jan 24, 2004 (UTC)

I think that means that the percentage of gays to gay wiccans is the same or more as the percentage of gays in the total population. It could be written a bit more clearly. Anyone?

[edit] What about non-Wiccans?

This entire article seems to be working under the impression that Wicca and Neopaganism are the same thing, which they are not (Wicca is part of Neopaganism, but Neopaganism is not Wicca. Like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.) I mean, even a touch something with Ásatrú views would be SOMETHING. (The splits there, man...Folkish and non-Folkish and everything) Or the recons, or the Druids or...

...Yeah, I should probably do it. I'm lazy. But it's something to think about. - El Juno

no, it should just be moved to another title. There is no "Neopagan view" of homosexuality. Syncretist groups are generally friendly, traditionalist groups generally hostile towards homosexuality. No need to treat unrelated viewpoints in the same article. Unsourced as it is, I don't see any encyclopedicity in this article in particular. We could as well have Neopaganism and alcohol, Neopaganism and sports or Neopaganism and bestiality. dab (ᛏ) 21:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brotherhood of the Phoenix

This section of the article seems to HAVE BEEN direct copy from here but was slightly reworded. This needs to be fixed a lot more.--Vidkun 14:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but it's a good start

[edit] Quotes

This section is significantly unbalanced, and borders on being an anti-gay rant. All the quotes are from a single secondary source wherein they are taken completely out of context. Furthermore, it's not actually possible to verify the original context. Look at this attribution from the last item:

  • "- quoted from a wiccan magazine, exact source unknown.".

There is no way that can be considered reliable and verifiable. Finally, this section gets a "score" of (6/0/0), meaning it has 6 negative quotes, zero positive quotes, and zero neutral. It seems the entire section should be either radically rewritten for verifiabilty and balance, or removed entirely. Doc Tropics 17:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I put it in. I think it needs to be "radically rewritten". Don't delete it, modify it. FK0071a 18:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I will put a tag on it for now. If you feel this section is important to the article and adds value to it, please try to balance it. BTW - Thanks for responding! Doc Tropics 18:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

This article is basically an essay and does not cite sources. On these grounds it qualifies for deletion. Should we delete the article, or source it and improve it? Either way, the original research in this article would have to be removed.Lotusduck 04:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Source it and improve it. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You source it and improve it. We would need articles that deal primarily on the subject. If you found a few, then the article would be as stub and be merged into the wicca page. I have found Queer articles that casually mention wicca and Wicca articles that casually mention gays, but nothing I could build even a part of an article from without being crazily interpretive in my reading.Lotusduck 04:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

As always happens, my Queer Pagan books are all 1,000 miles away from me at the moment <sheepish grin>! But I'll see what I can find. ISBN 0304704237 is a good one - I'm sure I can find more sources. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This article has been tagged as needing sourcing for a year and a half. Unless some sort of effort is made to remedy this I'm going to AfD the article. NeoFreak 18:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

To those within Wicca this is an important topic, the problem being to find bona fide sources that are neither original research nor uninformed speculation. The challenge to find sources is a reasonable one and I'll try to rise to it - but I will need a bit of time to pull these together. I don't have citations to hand that I can bung in tomorrow... However I will try and put up something as soon as possible, to show goodwill! Kim Dent-Brown 22:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course. I've seen all the good work you've put in at the main Wicca article and its new offshoots so I have no doubt as to your dedication or competence. I understand that this is an article that won't get sourced overnight. It was just a frustration seeing this being tagged for a year and a half with not a lick of work done to source it. I'm not an expert on either NeoPaganism or homosexuality, one is more of a passive interest and the other is something I've never studied in isolation. I'm willing to help if you could point me in the right direction. I've got a over-due list from hell at the library but once I get that cleared up I'll see if I can't find something before I head overseas in a couple weeks. Cheers. NeoFreak 22:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added half a dozen references and a couple of useful (at least I think so!) external links to websites which carry collations of articles/essays on the subject. I'm also putting out a request on some mailing lists of which I'm a member, asking for more suggestions for solid sources to cite. I'm Wiccan, but not homosexual, so would welcome any feedback on my POV or ignorance! I think in the long run this article needs a full re-write, but just getting in some references for now is a start. Kim Dent-Brown 11:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Kim that the article needs a complete rewrite. I am going to be writing an article on Wicca and LGBT people for the GLBTQ encyclopedia site. It will of course be properly referenced. I can ask them if they mind me contributing it to Wikipedia also. I guess not, as I will have copyright on it. There are a couple of problems I have with the existing Wikipedia article: (1) it odes not reflect the views of the majority of Wiccans, many of whom are moving beyond ideas of rigid gender; (2) it would be better if it used the term LGBT or queer rather than homosexual, because homosexual is a clinical term often used by homophobes; (3) it fails to mention ideas of the Divine Androgyne, which form a significant thread in Wicca and were derived from ideas current in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. yewtree 09:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Yewtree - glad someone else is looking at this with me and NeoFreak. Re your points (1) and (3) - from personal experience I'd agree, but what I don't have is authoritative references to avoid being found guilty of original research. I don't want to rely exclusively on websites, but don't have the library of books/journals I need in this particular area. If you can bring the material from your GLBTQ encyclopaedia, personally I'd think that was great. Re (2) see separate section below! Kim Dent-Brown 10:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I have a big collection of books and am currently doing a project on queer spirituality, so will be able to contribute something as soon as I have finished the project. Re point (1), I don't know if there is any research data (hmm, there's an idea for another project); re point (3) I can back that one up with detailed references. See http://pagantheologies.pbwiki.com/Gender%20and%20Sexuality%20in%20Contemporary%20Paganisms%20-%20part%201 and http://pagantheologies.pbwiki.com/Gender%20and%20Sexuality%20in%20Contemporary%20Paganisms%20-%20part%202

yewtree wrote above: "(2) it would be better if it used the term LGBT or queer rather than homosexual, because homosexual is a clinical term often used by homophobes". I've gone through and changed 'homosexual' to 'LGBT' in the main article in most places where it occurs. Hopefully the text reads reasonably well, I didn't have to mangle any sentences to make it fit. There are a couple of instances of 'homosexual*' remaining, because they are in quotes or for other reasons. I do think this change makes it a more inclusive article, and justifies the change of name. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk to me) 15:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change of name?

See point (2) from yewtree above. I'm entirely sympathetic, but I think such a change throughout the article would necessarily involve a change of title. Which then begs the question - change it to what?

  • LGBT issues and Wicca
  • Wicca and heterosexism
  • Sexual orientation and Wicca
  • et al.....

Any thoughts? Kim Dent-Brown 10:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Sexual orientation and Wicca" sounds fine to me yewtree 10:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
That was my immediate choice too, straight off the top of my head. What say we wait to see if anyone else has thoughts, and if no-one has a better idea I'll make the change in 24 hours or so? Kim Dent-Brown 10:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking of changing out "oreintation" with "identity". "Sexual identity in/and Wicca" Yes? No? NeoFreak 13:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
My thought is to leave the article name as-is. This is an encyclopedia, so the more "clinical" title works. But definitely change the text :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Sexual orientation and Wicca is a wider subject than Homosexuality and Wicca which, by definition, only covers one of the orientations possible. And arguably Sexual identity and Wicca is wider still! I think the suggestion above from yewtree didn't just involve replacing the term 'homosexual' but rewriting the article into one of the two broader forms above. (Even if I'm misunderstanding her suggestion, I think this would be a good idea.) So I'm in favour of a change to one of the two wider titles, with a concomitant rewrite of the article to make it broader in scope. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk to me) 14:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like four votes at the moment, 1 for no change and 3 for change:

  • 1 for status quo
  • 2 for Sexual orientation and Wicca
  • 1 for Sexual identity and Wicca

I'll rename the article to Sexual orientation and Wicca in a few hours unless anyone has a change of mind or a new voice comes into the discussion. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk to me) 10:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Page move completed. I have fixed a few double redirects, so if you are going to revert this page back to the original, please (a) consider discussing it here first! and (b) check first to see 'What links here' in case you have to restore the old links. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk to me) 13:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gardnerian Wicca in the UK and USA

I have to point out that Gardnerian Wicca is much more conservative and narrowly-defined in the USA than in the UK. In the UK, hardly any Gardnerian covens that I have visited in the last ten years bother about the "male-female pairs" thing, and most are extremely relaxed about LGBT people. They may be heterocentric in their ritual style, though. When I was the only queer person in my coven, I found it difficult to introduce queer themes, though I long ago dispensed with "As the cup is to the female, so the athame is to the male". I would also argue that we need a more inclusive definition of the Great Rite, such as this one by Lynna Landstreet: "That, to me, is the true Great Rite, of which all other enactments, sexual or not, are merely symbolic. That moment of lightning striking the primeval sea to create the first living organism is what I see when the athamé touches the wine." http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usxx&c=gay&id=2458 However, most people in Wicca probably persist in their view of polarity as "the masculine principle" and "the feminine principle" and think they're being inclusive by acknowledging that LGBT people embody both (instead of ditching the whole concept and coming up with a better definition of polarity). However, I hesitate to put all this in the article because it's not backed up by research showing that lots of Gardnerian Wiccans actually see it the same way as I do. --yewtree 15:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An observation on article titling

Reading through the article I've got a quite confused picture of the topic, that's coming from someone with a pretty good understanding of neopaganism in general, Wicca and trad witch-craft in particular.

I would suggest that this article is more about sexual orientation in neo-agan traditions derived from Wicca, rather than Wicca itself. Appreciating that a single article can't really cover the history of Wicca since GG revealed it post WWII I'd suggest that structurally it needs to discuss the developments of wicca and its derivatives and reflect on the various positions on sexuality. The content at the moment really suggests that Gardnerian is an abberation, rather than a root with respect to sexuality and orientation.

Otherwise the article needs to be retitled to a more general discussion of sexuality within neo-paganism rather than Wicca.

ALR 19:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, but if you look at the top of this talk page you'll see that it originally started as an article on homosexuality and neopaganism, but was felt by many to be too Wicca oriented! Personally I think it would need a lot of expansion to become [[Sexual orientation and neopaganism]] and the current title is an accurate reflection of the content. Not the content doesn't need improving! And we have yewtree who is working on that now. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk to me) 22:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Women than men

Statistic needed cited or clarified... to my understanding it is unknown which gender holds the higher percentage... there are most certainly certain groups that have higher numbers of one gender over another such as feminist wiccan groups, but I believe it is an erroneous assumption to state that overall there are more women than men... any proof? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chado2008 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All Acts of Love & Pleasure Quote

I'm going to add a "citation needed" tag to the statement attributed to the "Charge of the Goddess" even though it already has one citation because I think it is a poor reference... I think the quote is attributable to Aphrodite specifically and you could find it in classic literature. FloridaJarrett (talk) 19:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disproportionate Weight

There is WAY too much weight given to rumored homophobia in the Wiccan/Pagan community as opposed to the reality of how little of it is present. It would be like talking about the "flat earth society" in an article about the earth's roundness. Gardner's rumored "homophobia" was only written about by two authors in the same tradition... and it has NOTHING to do with Wicca worldwide. Editors must keep in mind that there are thousands of opinionated books published on the subjects of wicca and homosexuality and most of them are "activist" points of view... MOST people want Wicca to be Homo-friendly and a SMALL minority (we're talking about maybe two activists) wants the opposite. Any citations on this would be pointless... Wikipedia should not be the place for opinions on how gay-friendly an entire religion is. FloridaJarrett (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I just removed a very biased statement of general beliefs because I checked the source and it was a webpage that quotes 10-12 anonymous people's opinions and this guy: http://www.kevwitch.co.uk/ (who is a self described believer in "Things like Star Wars") People really need to stop citing any old thing on the internet... it doesn't fly.

(comments below are pasted from above to conform with rules)FloridaJarrett (talk) 11:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edits For Neutrality

I just started using wikipedia (see my other comments) and so I haven't figured out how to nominate a page for deletion yet... but this page should be deleted. There is nothing but biased, poorly cited opinion-driven nonsense in this article. It can't be edited enough to make it right.

The latest issue I have is that the authors of this page refer to "neopagan deities like Zeus"... I got news for ya... there is nothing "neo"pagan about Zeus. If the Greek Gods are "new" then we've never heard of "old".

Can somebody help me out with this page? FloridaJarrett (talk) 08:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, The author Arin Murphy-Hiscock is cited as a reference to how modern Wicca agrees with homophobia and I would just like to offer you all a snippet from one of her interviews: "Not really. I was raised Anglican, but not in a strict sort of way. My parents taught me to respect and honour the people around me, as well as nature. I was a church goer until my and active in the church community for years until in my late teens I was pressed to donate even more of my time and energy... I never officially left Christianity..." - Arin Murphy Hiscock in an interview (http://www.twpt.com/arinmurphyhiscock.htm)

People have gone to great effort to indicate on this page that homophobia exists in Wicca and I'm here to tell you that the evidence of this is minimal. FloridaJarrett (talk) 09:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

After many edits and additional clarifications, I think I have given this subject a more accurate representation. FloridaJarrett (talk) 11:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for putting so much work into this article. It was indeed a bit of a mess. One way to look for more help is to leave messages with any relevant Wikiprojects - in this case, WikiProject LGBT studies and WikiProject Neopaganism. I'd help myself, but I don't really know anything about the topic... Feel free to drop me a note if you want help with general Wiki stuff, though. --Alynna (talk) 12:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)