From the NY Times -
Article here
Quote:Wiccans Keep the Faith With a Religion Under Wraps
DUMFRIES, Va. ?- Above the woman's fireplace hangs her wedding picture, taken in a Lutheran church years ago. Below it, on the mantelpiece, is a small Wiccan altar: two candles, a tiny cauldron, four stones to represent the elements of nature and a small amethyst representing her spirit.
The wedding portrait is always there. But whenever someone comes to visit, the woman sweeps the altar away. Raised Southern Baptist in Virginia and now a stay-at-home mother of two in this Washington suburb, she has told almost no one ?- not her relatives, her friends or the other mothers in her children's playgroups ?- that she is Wiccan.
Among the most popular religions to have flowered since the 1960s, Wicca ?- a form of paganism ?- still faces a struggle for acceptance, experts on the religion and Wiccans themselves said. In April, Wiccans won an important victory when the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a lawsuit and agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans' headstones.
But Wicca in the civilian world is largely a religion in hiding. Wiccans fear losing their friends and jobs if people find out about their faith.
"I would love to be able to say ?'Accept us for who we are,' but I can't, mainly because of my kids," said the suburban mother, who agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity. "Children can be cruel, and their parents can be even more cruel, and I don't want my kids picked on for the choice their mommy made."
She worries that because most people know little about Wicca, they will assume she worships Satan. She fears that her family and friends will abandon her and that the community will ostracize her.
Maybe one day, we ( Thats right
WE) wont be so misunderstood.
Speaking from my own personal experience, I was once asked to remove my pentacle while working in a nursing home.
It was on a long enough chain that it hung under my uniform.
Sometimes though, as with all jewlery, it would fall out when I was bending over, or picking something up.
Granted, the director at the time was fabulous about it and I absolutely understood her reasoning.
We were working with people ( about 10 years ago) who were in their 80-90's+ and were raised mostly christian.
They were approaching the ends of their lives and didn't want to have any religious fear. It was also not the time in THEIR lives to selfishly attempt to force them into acceptance of a religion that they were never taught about just because I choose to follow it.
Our jobs were to comfort. Not scare .
I understood her. Completely.
I still loved working for her, to this day in fact..
But I remember that day. That was the day I decided to stop telling people I even HAD a religion. Let alone telling them what it was.
It isn't my fault that rebellious freaks took the symbol of my religion (my pentacle)and the religion of christianity ( The cross ) bitched them for themselves by turning them upside down and making their own rules and calling themselves satanists..
Im not a satanist.
In fact, I dont even believe in the guy. And neither do any other wiccans/witches I know.
Satan is a diety that belongs in the christian religion. Period.
To me, the idea is a joke.. but Im not here to bash.
I now wear my pentacle outside my shirt, and usually ( with a good laugh) hiss at those who sneer at me.
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