(idea) by Wuukiee Mon Jan 08 2001 at 6:10:49
A phrase, somewhat tongue in cheek, used in the pagan community. "coming out of the broom closet" means revealing to family, friends, co-workers, or whomever else that one is *openly* pagan/Wiccan/asatru/insert "nontraditional" religion here.
This activity in some, if not many, ways can have nearly as many repercussions as the action from which it took its name--*many* companies don't like having "witches" working for them, and sometimes even if the company doesn't care, the co-workers do. either simple ignorance or intentional refusal to understand or accept can lead to very awkward workplace relations. For a mild, mild case of this phenomenon reread the userfriendly strips from around Samhain (Halloween). but people *have* been fired (usually under 'veiled' reasons but not always, just for being pagan.

"Coming out of the broom closet" to friends is usually somewhat less difficult. Many will be curious, not understanding what you believe, and may ask questions. Some may not want to accept this. (very Christian friends sometimes panic because they don't want you to "burn in hell" for being a "witch".)

Explaining to families is frequently the *most* difficult, especially for people under 25 or 30. (some never tell parents because it is too uncomfortable. I personally have yet to tell mine, although someday probably will.) Especially in the case of religious parents, they tend to wonder "what went wrong" and "what mistake they made" that their child is doing *this*! (many people from older generations also have a much fainter understanding of paganism than gen-X and later people do.) For high schoolers and college students particularly, a common parental response is "it’s just a phase", or fear that their child is in a "cult" or participating in "devil worship". Children get sent to talk to shrinks, or pastors because "something must be wrong with them". it should be mandatory to raise your children atheist. nontraditional religions are so often misunderstood.

Although we played on the name and laugh a bit at ourselves that way (as pagans tend to do. even at ritual we're never stonily serious), it *is* a real issue. Society doesn't burn us at the stake anymore for being "witches" but we still receive religious discrimination far more than is acceptable. One needs to give some serious thought, before being public about being pagan. It's a bigger deal than it seems.
This node ended up much longer than I intended. it was meant as like a three-liner, the first bit above the first line. then I got involved and realized how important these thoughts were to me. At this point, I decided to move some information I intended to put here, to its own node in suggestions for coming out of the broom closet, because that actually *is* a somewhat separate topic.

I like it! 1 C!