It's Pagan PRIDE Week, For Hera's Sake

Via, Witchvox, from the Times of Northwest Indiana comes another reasonably well-done article on Pagan Pride activities. My one complaint, and it may well be with the interviewee as much as it is with the reporter, is this:

Ivey said members of the group don't live up to the pagan stereotype. They don't all wear flowing skirts, have silver necklaces with large pentagrams[,] and go by unique names, she said [(Although a witch named Ivey . . . Hmmmm)].

Now no one enjoys Pagan stereotypes more than I (she said stroking her cat, drinking herb tea, burning incense, and wearing purple), but I can't think of a single other religion that would have this sort of sentence written about them nor that would want to make sure that the reporter was told that they don't really act like members of their religion.

Can you imagine every reading that:

Berkowitz said that members of the group don't live up to the the Jewish stereotype. They don't all wear yamakules, eat matzo, and want to be doctors, he said.

Miller said that members of the group don't live up to the Lutheran stereotype. They don't all eat jello, listen to NPR, and spend their days setting up and taking down metal chairs in the church basement, she said.

De Giovannolio said that members of the group don't live up the Catholic stereotype. They don't all have ten million children, wear barbed wire garters, and see the Virgin Mary in every grilled cheese sandwich or waterstain, he said.

OTOH, I think that the point that Ivey may have been trying to make is a valid one. There are lots of witches who don't, in fact, live up to the stereotype, just as there are many Hindus, Baptists, and Moslems, for example, who don't live up to the stereotypes associated with their religion. Wiccans are notoriously difficult to census, in part because of our lack of centralized hierarchies, church buildings, and other indicia of "established" religion and, in part because many of us are still in the broom closet because we want to keep our jobs, children, homes, etc. But what we do know is that there are Wiccan doctors, lawyers, CEOs, teachers, nurses, firemen, scientists, farmers, and electric linemen, just as there re Wiccan herbalists, tarot readers, massage therapists, RenFaire artists, and pet psychics. There are straight and gay Wiccans, male, female, and transgendered Wiccans, Wiccans who eke by on a small amount of money and live out in the mountains and Wiccans who earn 7 figures and live in large cities. There are Wiccans who dress in purple broomstick skirts and Wiccans who dress in Moschino suits.

And, as the Times of Northwest Indiana tells us, there are witches who get together to party at the American Legion Post 485 in Schererville, on Burr Street, north of U.S. 30. If that's not a stereotype-buster, then I don't know what is!