While Samhain and Halloween are holidays that honour those that have passed, a time when the veils between the seen and unseen are thin, it is also, it seems, an increasingly popular time for some to get married. For some it’s just a laugh, something to break with the traditional expectations of marriage, for others it’s an extension of a lifelong love of spooky things. Getting married on Halloween may even be a long-held family tradition. But increasingly, it is a time for modern Pagans to tie the knot on one of their most sacred days. Such is the case of Dave Dominic and Maggie Venables, who were wed in Sherwood Forest by High Priestess Beccie Morris.

“Marrying in Sherwood Forest, they observed traditions which would have been a feature of Pagan weddings thousands of years ago – including stepping over a broomstick and having their hands tied together with ribbons. Pagans like Dave and Maggie call Halloween Samhain or Samhein, pronounced Sah-Ween … “It was very poignant to us. With us both being in our fifties we have lost a few people and it’s nice to be able to celebrate with our lost ones.” Maggie said: “It was magical and fantastic. Everybody had a wonderful time. It’s so appropriate and so real, and it feels so good.” Dave, 53, has been Pagan since he was a teenager, while Maggie, 52, has been moving towards Paganism over the last few years.”

While some might have qualms about getting married during Samhain, for Dave and Maggie it accentuated their faith and their connection to those who have passed, making for a poignant ceremony. While Dave and Maggie’s ceremony seemed rather solemn and understated, that didn’t seem to be the case of Daniel Shank and Christina Dorffner, a couple in Maryland who went all-out in merging Halloween and Samhain into their interfaith nuptials.

“But perhaps the wind was meant to blow when the auburn-haired bride made her entrance, veil flying, long silk gown glinting with 1,500 garnet and citrine jewels, escorted by her father and the otherworldly strains of the theme from “Edward Scissorhands.” The black-robed high priest and priestess presiding over this sacred rite would call forth the wind, along with water, earth and fire, to consecrate the vows exchanged Saturday by Christina Dorffner and Daniel Shank, one self-described Catholic witch and one pagan.”

The Catholic witch and Pagan were not only decked out in costumes, along with all the other guests, but were married by Pagan lottery winner Ellwood “Bunky” Bartlett (a friend of the couple who made the elaborate wedding fiscally possible) and were entertained at the reception by legendary horror-movie host Count Gore de Vol (aka Dick Dyszel). All of which makes me wonder if this is the start of some larger trend? Is Samhain for lovers? Considering the high-stakes world of weddings will anyone be able to top getting married by a Wiccan millionaire? I suppose we’ll have to see next year if this is truly a growing phenomenon, or if this was simply an unusually love-filled year.

Fellow Pagans, it looks like our efforts to slowly take over the nation through secularism have been laid bare by speculative fiction writer (and former House Speaker) Newt Gingrich. On Friday, Gingrich, while giving a three-hour long lecture on “Rediscovering God in America”, uttered this warning to the Rock Church congregation in Virginia.

“I am not a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator. [...] I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history. We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism.”

Mike Huckabee, who was also speaking at the event, then assured the Christian audience that God, not voters and massive fiscal contributions from the Mormons, defeated gay marriage in California.

“Huckabee told the audience he was disturbed to hear President Barack Obama say during his speech in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday that one nation shouldn’t be exalted over another. “The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense,” Huckabee said. The United States is a “blessed” nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries’ defeat of the British empire “a miracle from God’s hand.” The same kind of miracle, he said, led California voters to approve Proposition 8, which overturned a state law legalizing same-sex marriages.”

We stand exposed! And the God of the Christians is fixing elections! Luckily, the atheists appear to be unconcerned and are still with us in our Gingrich/nation-surrounding efforts.

“There are worse things to be surrounded by. People who support Gingrich and Huckabee, for example.”

As for God’s hand in California? Simply a setback. We were too busy surrounding Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire at the time (there are a lot of Pagans in New England, obviously). But our forces are currently surrounding California and the Pacific Northwest, so look keep a close watch on the next couple of election cycles (it’s one of the reasons I’m moving to Oregon in July). So though Gingrich is on to us, don’t worry, most people think he’s nuts anyway. Now back to my secure Pagan bunker to prepare for tonight’s Tony Awards (a celebration of all things gay and pagan).

The DesMoines Register does a great job illustrating why legalizing same-sex marriage isn’t only about gay rights, but the rights of religious minorities as well. The paper profiles Toni Heard and Michelle McBride, a Nebraskan couple who were handfasted in a Wiccan ceremony two years ago, but are now hoping to gain legal recognition thanks to the Iowa state Supreme Court.

“Kelly McBride’s eyes filled with tears. Both her daughter and Heard had been victims of crimes as youngsters and only started healing when they found each other, she said. “They found love – and then the state told them they couldn’t show their love,” Kelly McBride said. “Now they can.” The couple live with Kelly McBride and her son, Kegan, 18, who was also in tow as a witness Monday. Heard, 26, and Michelle McBride met on school bus No. 2 11 years ago. They both sang in the high school chorus. Heard was in foster care. When she aged out of the system, she moved into the McBride home. In 2007, Heard and Michelle McBride were married in the Wiccan religion but wanted to marry in Iowa for legal reasons. The marriage isn’t recognized in Nebraska, however.”

The words “religious freedom” get thrown around a lot. Opponents of same-sex marriage like to scare people into believing that allowing gays to marry will somehow limit theirs, even though no real proof of that has emerged. Meanwhile, religious groups who do bless, honor, and perform same-sex unions are told that their rites aren’t legally valid. Now a lack of legal recognition might not make the rite any less blessed or valid in the eyes of their co-religionists, but it does complicate things if they want our government on the state or national level to also acknowledge that they are a joined couple and deserving of the same legal privileges afforded opposite-sex unions. That couple from Nebraska, married in a neighboring state, will most likely have to go to court if they want their own union recognized. Just think, thousands of dollars in lawyers fees just to ensure hospital visitation or inheritance, and considering Nebraska’s attitudes towards gays in the past there’s no guarantee of success.

The solutions are simple. Either grant same-sex couples the same legal marriage rites as opposite-sex couples, or completely remove “marriage” from the purview of governmental oversight. Create a one-size-fits-all civil union and let the individual churches, synagogues, circles, groves, and fellowships decide who can or can’t marry within their tradition. Either way, opponents of same-sex marriage are on the losing side of history. They can spend decades raging at a changing world, spreading fear and misinformation, or they can accept that imposing their uniform morality on others isn’t just or merciful. In the meantime, Pagan clergy all across this nation will continue to bless same-sex marriages, and hope for a day when the entire nation will give our rites the same consideration that other religions already receive.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (a Wiccan tradition/church) has sent out a press release concerning new developments regarding the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. The online school is getting a makeover, and gaining a new vice-president and administrator.

“The Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary, given degree granting authority by Washington state in 1999, is having a face lift this spring … In addition, WSTS proudly announces the appointment of Kirk White as interim Vice President and Administrator of the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. White, a well known Wiccan author and respected High Priest, is co-founder of the National Association of Pagan Schools and Seminaries, a past co-National First Officer of Covenant of the Goddess, North America’s oldest and largest association of Witches and Wiccans. White also founded and served for 10 years as President of Cherry Hill Seminary. In 2006, Wildhunt.org named him one of the “25 most influential modern living Pagans today”. Since 2007 he has served as a consultant to new and established Pagan seminaries across the United States and we are pleased to have him working with us.”

Bringing Kirk White onboard seems like a move for WSTS to gain some more credibility as a Pagan seminary, though that might be hampered by the fact that the school’s dean is Belladonna “Wife Swap” Thompson. It should also be noted that “degree granting authority” isn’t the same thing as accreditation. So always check to see who exactly your teachers are, and what qualifications they have to be teaching you the subject at hand. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am on the BOD of Cherry Hill Seminary, but I have no particular animus or rivalry with WSTS.

When is “witchcraft” our “Witchcraft”? By that I mean, what do journalists and authors like Bob Morgan mean when they say a young woman was kidnapped and initiated by a “a coven of witches”? A South Alabama paper reports on the e-publication of a book by one of their reporters concerning a young woman who claims to have been held hostage for years by a Californian “coven” called “The Brotherhood”.

“At the age of 15, Nikki Russo checked into a California hospital for treatment of an eating disorder. It was in this hospital that she was eventually abducted by a nurse, initiated into a coven of witches and thrown into a dark world filled with drugs, alcohol, abuse and intimidation. Nikki Russo hopes The Pomegranate Seed will be a warning to readers not to take anything for granted where cherished institutions are concerned. Today, Russo’s story and struggle to recovery is chronicled in the new book The Pomegranate Seed — Nikki Russo’s Sojourn Through Institutional Failure and the World of the Occult.”

Morgan is apparently sensitive to accusations of “Satanic Panic” since he first reported on Nikki Russo, and claims that the book is filled with legal documents and depositions. However, neither the initial 2007 report by Morgan, or the 2009 piece on his subsequent book, goes into any detail as to what exactly this “Brotherhood” was practicing, and how they are linked with California’s occult community. This lack of detail is all explained as a way to honor the victim, but it also denies us any clear notion as to what this group was. I have no doubt that Russo was abused if she says she was, I’m just skeptical concerning how “witchy” these “witches” were.

World of Wonder shares with us some “homo history” in the form of ancient examples of same-sex marriage.

As Africa was the birthplace of civilization it should come as no surprise to find that the earliest known reference to same-sex marriage in history can also be found there. Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were royal manicurists in the court of Pharaoh Niuserre during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty. The artwork in their tomb leaves no doubt that they were viewed as a couple. The men are depicted in near constant embrace. They are shown with their noses touching (the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time, a form of kissing). Even their names speak to the intensity of their bond. When the names Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are put together, it translates into “joined in life and joined in death.”

Just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun, and that different cultures and times had different reactions to same-sex relations. To claim a singular constant for legal and social public bonds is myopic at best and revisionist at worst.

I understand that some people don’t like Barack Obama, but the intense white-hot loony anger he invokes in some people is just plain amusing (when it isn’t frightening). A recent letter published in a Virginia newspaper now compares our “Marxist” president with Pagan hero Julian the Apostate!

“God has given America her very own 21st century ‘Julian the Apostate’, better known as the Marxist, Barack Obama. Now before any of Obama’s supporters hastily come to his defense, consider the fact that his ideologies are blatantly Marxist, yet, he is not alone in his Marxist tendencies … If the reports of Obama’s Marxist passion were not enough to wake up the Christian community to the fearful danger of a ‘Julian Administration’, the issues of abortion and homosexuality should have made it crystal clear that professing Christians should not accept such an individual as the leader of America. The community of Christendom should have rejected such a blasphemer out of hand. Yet, for the sake of party, race, historical precedence or simply a hatred for the prior administration, those Christians professing allegiance to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe have grossly erred in their judgment, and along with hypocrites, heathens and traitors are responsible for destroying the roots of traditional American Christianity … At the outset of the Obama administration, a vicious war was declared against both Christ and all those that call themselves by His Name. Even now many of those Christians who supported him initially are finding themselves the target of his wrath. His goal is, and always was, the eradication of Christianity through government policies aimed at solidifying a Marxist, Totalitarian, immoral Statist order. This is nothing short of fascism.”

Ah! I love the smell of paranoid conspiracy theories in the morning, it smells like victory. Somehow I doubt Obama is going to “eradicate” Christianity, but if paranoid pastors keep invoking Flavius Claudius Julianus, they may not like what his spirit (once called) will do. This is the fellow who wrote “Against the Gallileans” after all.

In a final note, since yesterday was Earth Day plenty of reporters were out looking for a religious angle. These ranged from those who interviewed Pagans about their connection to the Earth, to snarky bloggers mocking right-wing hysteria that Earth Day was a conspiracy to get red-blooded Christian Americans to start worshipping Gaia.

“Earth Day, Green Week, Global Warming, Cap and Trade, Radical Environmentalism, Gaiaism. These and similar beliefs are rapidly becoming a state sponsored religion. This is a worldwide religion, not just an American movement. The end goal of this religion is to halt the industrial and economic advance of man, and to make man subserviant to Gaia, the earth as a living super-organism: Earth as God.”

I can’t believe our super-secret conspiracy to slowly re-paganize the Earth has been discovered! Curses! Foiled again! How will we ever spread our plans for a worldwide religion based on a living super-organism now!

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

I’ll be away from my computer for most of today, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to post a clear and concise video I found explaining why opposition to gay marriage limits the rights of religious minorities who want to perform gay marriages (a point I’ve talked about before on this blog). It also debunks several conservative Christian talking points concerning the “dangers” to religious freedom inherent in granting gay couples full marriage rights.

The video originated at the Waking Up blog, where you can find other videos as well.

Since it’s Sunday, be sure to check out my weekly music podcast as well.

Behave yourselves in the comments while I’m gone! I’ll most likely be checking in later this evening.

The Sacred Tribes Journal, a predominately Christian study of New Religious Movements, has posted its latest issue online. The journal, which was initially formed to provide a different approach to Christian missiology than the old-school anti-cult apologetics, can offer some interesting outsider perspectives of Pagan religions. In this latest installment you can read an examination of “vampire religion”, and two reviews of the Pagan-Christian dialogue book “Beyond the Burning Times” (check out my interview with the Pagan participant Gus diZerega). In particular, I would like to examine a portion of Gerald R. McDermott’s review of “Beyond the Burning Times”.

“I hope this is not the last book on Pagan-Christian dialogue. For the best inter-religious dialogue is based on deep respect, which means exploring the deepest differences in an atmosphere of civility. While this book does get at some of those deep differences such as monotheism, fallenness, transcendence and the uniqueness of Jesus it gives short shrift to others. For example, God’s relationship to gender is touched on but largely skirted. While diZerega says the divine is feminine, and Johnson replies that the Christian God includes the feminine, there is no concerted attention given to why the Bible presents God in largely male terms. Or why Pagans deny the normativity of heterosexuality and Christians affirm it. The underlying assumption in diZerega and even in (Christian) Petersen’s response is that sexual differences are either arbitrary or irrelevant yet Christianity has a long tradition saying quite the opposite. In an era when sexuality’s relationship to the divine is so pressing, this discussion between Pagans and Christians needs to begin.“

McDermott’s critique gets right to the heart of an issue I’ve been bringing up quite a bit in the last year, the religious dimensions of the gay civil rights struggle, specifically gay marriage. Too often the debate around gay marriage is portrayed as a conservative monotheist vs secularist/liberal monotheist battle (what I affectionately call “Lefty Jesus vs Righty Jesus”), when in fact the issue is far more complex. There are faiths that have a completely different theology concerning the matter, and their voices are being drowned out amidst the shouting. Perhaps if Mr. McDermott can see that this is a conversation worth having, other Christians too will realize that their are moralities and worldviews on this issue outside of their own. Such a discussion could change how we approach the issue of marriage.

As for McDermott’s contention that Pagans “reject” heteronormativity, I must respectfully disagree. A Pagan outlook isn’t built on the binary of “either-or”, it instead embraces an ethic of “and-and”. Just as we accept the existence (and more importantly the co-existence) of numerous possible divine powers/entities, so too do we accept that there is a valid heterosexual “normalcy” and a homosexual “normalcy” (and a variety of other possible “normals”). An individual Pagan may personally dislike or disagree with homosexual marriage, but unlike the dominant monotheisms that attitude isn’t one that is founded on a core scriptural truth that all Pagans must believe in, he or she has no mandate to enforce a ban (legal or spiritual) on someone else’s marriage or belief system.

The often unsaid adjective in arguments concerning the “breakdown of the family” is “Christian” (or “Mormon”, or “Muslim”, or sometimes “Jewish”). It isn’t so much a fear that heteronormativity will be destroyed (and the “family” along with it), but the idea of a “Christonormativity” losing prominence as other faiths, ideas, and philosophies grow in stature. Clinging to their appeals to tradition or “natural law” (which, of course, ignores nature when convenient) these groups fight to reinforce their own consensus reality by denying us ours. Such an action seems madness to the polytheist, who knows that wildly different religious and cultural ideas can and should co-exist (and even borrow and blend amongst themselves over time). We can only hope that the dialogue started by “Beyond the Burning Times” (and advocated by McDermott in Sacred Tribes) spreads beyond its small group of Christian and Pagan supporters and takes on the challenge of peaceful co-existence and mutual respect.

The Maryland Business Gazette, covering the nationwide anti-Prop. 8 protests in their own backyard, gives us an example of how marriage inequality translates into religious inequality.

“Debby Morris, a gay woman who has married her partner three times, once in a Wiccan religious ceremony in 1999, in the marriage demonstration at the Millennium March in 2000 and in Massachusetts in 2004, said they plan next to head to Connecticut which recently legalized same sex marriage … Morris … said Proposition 8 makes her a “second class citizen,” and her demonstration in front of the LDS Temple was in reaction to the role of the church in financing Proposition 8 advertising. “I don’t force my religion on other people, don’t force yours on me,” Morris said.”

Thanks to the current situation of marriage being a religious/civil hybrid, Christians, Mormons, and other supporters of “traditional marriage” are, in essence, defining marriage for Pagans, Unitarian-Universalists, certain progressive Christian denominations, and other faith groups willing to provide the blessing of marriage to gay couples. And yes, LGBT Pagans are taking it personally that Mormons and Christians are telling them their religious rites can’t be legally valid.

“Yesterday morning, as my spouse (and using that word is a spell) was sobbing, she kept repeating ‘why do they hate us so much?’. I told her…amidst my own tears…. that it wasn’t so much hate as fear. Fear of difference, fear of change, fear of sexuality, and fear of all of us being fully in our power. Love is the antidote and it will prevail. Harvey Milk was right when he said we must ‘come out, come out, wherever you are’.”

As the dust settles on the initial electoral defeat, religious groups who bless, honor, and perform same-sex marriages are getting involved in the judicial struggle to overturn Proposition 8.

“The religious institutions that file this petition … count on article XVIII to ensure that the California Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection for religious minorities cannot be taken away without a deliberative process of the utmost care possible in a representative democracy. If Proposition 8 is upheld, however, the assurance will disappear– for, just as surely as gay men and lesbians could be deprived of equal protection by a simple majority vote, so too could religious minorities be deprived of equal protection– a terrible irony in a nation founded by people who emigrated to escape religious persecution.”

The above quote, from a legal petition to void Proposition 8, comes from a coalition that includes the United Church of Christ, the California Council of Churches, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (among others). They realize that the precedent created here not only stops future same-sex marriages in California, but also creates an unequal religious hierarchy with the “winners” getting legal blessings for their marriages.

In a land of real religious equality Debby Morris’s first wedding, her Wiccan handfasting, would have been the only one she needed. The fact that she has to find loopholes and travel the country to find some sort of legal recognition is not only an insult to all loving same-sex couples, but an insult to the Wiccans who performed that ceremony. As the battle rages on, it is becoming increasingly clear that it isn’t only about what gays are legally allowed to do, but about what religious minorities are legally allowed to do. A shift in thinking that may change the entire battle.

“In Paganism, there is no sense of a norm in terms of a handfasted relationship. While the Church, and others keen to hold to a status quo, have been fearing for the future of marriage and the family with gay weddings and extended legal rights for couples cohabiting, the Pagan perspective is quite different. Tribe and family are of paramount importance, yet far more worrying than the increase in ‘different’ household arrangements is the ongoing decline in people’s ability to craft intimate relationships at all.” – Emma Restall Orr, “Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics”

As a recently re-galvanized LGBT community and their allies take to the streets protesting the passage of California’s discriminatory Proposition 8 (which bans same-sex marriage), editor Japhy Grant at the prominent gay blog Queerty asks an important question.

“I personally understand that for many Prop. 8 supporters, their beliefs are the most important thing in the world to them, that the idea of living without those beliefs would be too much to bear. Well, that’s how we feel about our equal rights. We are not asking you to abandon your faith, just stop making the rest of the country bow before your altar. What of the faiths which bless same-sex unions? Are you not denying them their freedom? Freedom from religion means freedom for all religions (even the absence of it), not just freedom for your religion. Keep your beliefs, but leave our rights alone.”

This very point is one I, and other prominent Pagans, have brought up at length. Proclaimed caretakers of “traditional” marriage are quick to raise the flag of “religious freedom”, while completely ignoring the fact that numerous faiths are denied the right to legal recognition of their own holy unions. Nor are “separate but equal” civil unions sufficient, as former Icelandic Asatruar high chieftain Jörmundur Ingi Hansen recently pointed out.

“Various people have claimed they give the same rights as marriage, but that is unfortunately not true. They do not include a reversionary right and do not provide the kind of safety that marriage is supposed to provide”

We are quickly approaching a tipping point. It is only a matter of time before a perfect storm of litigation, activism, and generational shifts in attitudes result in a nationwide reversal of draconian laws that seek to ban holy unions performed for same-sex couples, and the disgustingly discriminatory laws that build on them. The more “traditional” marriage proponents try to cling to their exclusive claim on what can be a legally valid marriage, the harder the subsequent fall will be when same-sex couples and their religious allies finally win this struggle.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

Over at the On Faith site, the panel weighs in on abortion. Pagan panelist Starhawk gives her take on “abortion and The Goddess”.

“Women are moral agents, and in the Goddess and Pagan traditions, we are each our own spiritual authority. We have a right to wrestle with these issues ourselves, not have them predetermined for us by government authorities. We have a right to determine what goes on inside our bodies. To deny that right to women is to invite government intrusion into all kinds of private and personal choices. Overturning Roe vs. Wade would open the door to state control of our most intimate and tender decisions, and be a step closer to a totalitarian regime.”

She also quotes from the excellent book “The Pagan Book of Living and Dying”. In other Starhawk-related news, she has posted a six-minute video clip of Reclaiming’s annual Spiral Dance ritual to her web site.

Over at the Nation, Max Blumenthal writes about infiltrating Sarah Palin’s former church, and gets his hands on video footage of the now-infamous “blessing” done by anti-witchcraft crusader Thomas Muthee on Palin in 2005. Guess what? Muthee didn’t just pray for her to become governor, he also asked for her to be protected from “witchcraft”.

“Muthee’s mounting stardom took him to Wasilla Assembly of God in May, 2005, where he prayed over Palin and called upon Jesus to propel her into the governor’s mansion — and beyond. Muthee also implored Jesus to protect Palin from “the spirit of witchcraft.” The video archive of that startling sermon was scrubbed from Wasilla Assembly of God’s website, but now it has reappeared.”

So much for claims that Palin was ignorant or non-compliant in that church’s ongoing and active participation in Third-Wave “spiritual warfare” tactics. One wonders what “spirits of witchcraft” Palin needed protection from? Are there fortune tellers in Wasilla causing car accidents?

The brutal beating of a woman in Florida by a cult group has produced some of the worst journalistic accounts I have ever read. Fueled by incomplete information, this gang is painted as some sort of Santeria-Voodoo-Pagan-Satanic hybrid. With guns.

“Wood told investigators she was once a member of a Santeria voodoo group in Flagler County. She said Sunday’s abduction and beating were not the first she had suffered in recent days as a result of her leaving the group last year to become a Christian ,,, Wood also told investigators the men and a petite blonde woman named “Sky” took her to an open field near a home where a bonfire was burning. They were “preparing” for the autumnal equinox, she said.” “They needed me to help call the spirits,” Wood told investigators, indicating it was something she had done when she was a member of the group.”

It seems to me there is some vital information missing here. It’s also troubling that the only “expert” quoted in any of the linked articles is a cult “exit counselor”. So far the only part of her story that has been confirmed is that a local church was helping her. Here’s hoping that whoever did beat her goes to prison, and that some less sensationalist light is shed on this cult/group.

In a final note, the Covenant of the Goddess has sent out a press release in support of same-sex marriage in California and Massachusetts.

“Covenant of the Goddess has, since its inception in 1975, had clergy willing to celebrate the religious if not the legal joining of two members of the same gender. While we respect the right of the individual clergy within COG who may choose not to perform such a ceremony, we are in support of marriage between two committed adults of any gender, and a majority of our celebrants are willing to perform such ceremonies.”

The release, which hasn’t been posted to their web site yet, also goes into the history of same-sex marriage in pagan cultures, and the social and legal importance of allowing marriage rights to same-sex couples today.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!

As I have pointed out before, laws against legally recognized gay marriage unfairly benefit those religious traditions who have a vested interest in GLBT folks remaining second-class citizens. The melding of a civil contract and (mainly Christian) religious ceremony in America has created the erroneous idea that the State should have some role in defining and blessing (with legal benefits) which two consenting adults should be able to be joined before their god(s). In a theocracy that might be understandable, but in a theoretically secular nation (one that harbors a vast diversity of religious viewpoints) such “traditions” of mixing religious law with secular law are absurd at best, and harmful at worst.

The Pagan attitude towards gay marriage is a very different one than the so-called ‘Judeo-Christian’ attitude that rigidly defines a sacred bonding, a marriage, as only possible between mating couples of the opposite sex. An example of this difference recently popped up in an Icelandic newspaper, where a former Asatru high chieftain blasted his government for its double standards concerning the legal status of gay and straight marriage in his country.

“Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, former high chieftain of Ásatrúarfélagid (a religious organization for those who believe in the pagan Icelandic/Nordic gods), has criticized the new laws on religious associations being able to confirm cohabitation between individuals of the same sex for being too vague and not really including marital rights. “The laws on confirmed cohabitation are mostly an optical illusion,” Hansen told Fréttabladid. “They neither give gay people nor straight people any rights to my best knowledge.” “Various people have claimed they give the same rights as marriage, but that is unfortunately not true. They do not include a reversionary right and do not provide the kind of safety that marriage is supposed to provide,” Hansen explained.”

While Iceland has long had civil unions for gay couples (called “registered partnership”), they have steered clear of allowing “marriage” for gay couples. The situation Hansen describes, is in regards to a new law that allows religious institutions to solemnize a “confirmed cohabitation”. While some are calling it “marriage”, others, like Hansen, point out that it doesn’t grant the same rights and status as a straight marriage.

“Separate laws are valid for the confirmation on cohabitation for straight and gay couples and the traditional definition of marriage, as a union between a man and a woman, remains unchanged. In October 2007, the State Church decided not to change the traditional definition of marriage. “I think it is poor behavior to make people believe that this is marriage when it isn’t,” Hansen said, adding, “If confirmed cohabitation is supposed to be such a good thing then why can’t priests confirm the cohabitation of straight couples?” “Until now I have not had the right to confirm the cohabitation of a man and a woman. There is no law that states that the cohabitation of two individuals of the opposite sex can be confirmed,” Hansen claimed. “I just don’t understand what the legislator is trying to achieve with this. It is like a band-aid for an undefined wound,” Hansen concluded.”

What these Icelandic issues illustrate is that “separate but equal” civil union compromises usually only emphasize the “separate”, and hardly ever confer true “equality”. Civil unions for GLBT folk in America might be seen as a step forward for awhile, but eventually those “not-marriage” contract compromises will start to chafe.

“We are all the same people, all of us. You’re no different than I am. Our love is the same. To me — to me, what it feels like — just, you know, I will speak for myself — it feels — when someone says, ‘You can have a contract, and you’ll still have insurance, and you’ll get all that,’ it sounds to me like saying, ‘Well, you can sit there; you just can’t sit there.’ That’s what it sounds like to me. It feels like — it doesn’t feel inclusive…It feels — it feels isolated. It feels like we are not — you know, we aren’t owed the same things and the same wording.” – Ellen DeGeneres

The solution is either for the government to allow true marriage equality and allow the solemnizations done by Pagan priests for gay couples to be just as legal as a Christian wedding of a straight couple, or for the government to get out of the marriage game altogether and establish only civil unions for everyone. Anything else creates a moral hierarchy with the traditional Christian definition of marriage at the top, and anything deviating from that below it. Thia marriage debate isn’t just about legal rights for gay couples, it is about respect, and true religious equality. So long as Pagan marriages and handfastings of gay couples aren’t legally recognized, the American government is participating in the sort of religious favorites-playing the separation of Church and State is supposed to prevent.