Still walking this path in spite of it all

I'm amazed that I'm still walking the same direction in light of all the angst I had the past year over finding it.  In spite of others who walk the same path, in fact.  I tend to be much more liberal than some on the Anglo Saxon path but I've found many with whom I find a lot of agreement.  Particularly on the subject of gay rights.

I had been reading a heathen blog intermittently for a while.  I say intermittently because I've seen some things I thought might be subtle racism but again it was possible it was just me reading too much into it.  Then there was the post about boys not being raised to be manly men and how boys are being feminized because they're not being taught to be athletic and jocks.  The post made it to a heathen forum where there were more taking this guy to task than agreeing with him.  When he started calling a lesbian a homophobe because she was defending her brother's non-athletic interests (he said she was implying that all gays are effeminate) then my temper went through the roof.  I had to walk away from it for a day.

It seems to have died off but I noticed in another thread about Heathens against Hate (and I can't tell you exactly what the debate was all about) that this guy was using the same tactics there, calling them racists.  Needless to say this guy's blog is off my list to read from now on.

Bottom line is, we don't know everything about the society that worshiped the Norse/Anglo-Saxon gods in the past at all.  And in my mind, how they did it isn't the barometer that measures how I do it.  We're not living in isolated villages with no sense of global interaction.  I live in the 21st century with 21st century sensibilities.  We have equality now or at least we're attempting it, working toward it.  Our sense of family has grown.  Our culture is nothing like the cultures of the past.  I prefer to live in the present and worship the gods in that setting.

I love learning as much as I can about the practices of the ancestors but I don't believe in limiting myself to that.  Certainly we have traditions and customs in our rituals that are new.  That doesn't mean they are any less reverent or irrelevant.  And as long as we don't try to pretend what we're doing is exactly how the ancestors did it, I don't see the problem.

I'll be honest, the attitude of the blogger was no different, in fact identical, to the attitudes we left behind in the fundie church.  Exactly the same.  Their fear of homosexuality is so pervasive that they have to man-up the boys so they don't end up gay.  Seriously.  Obviously it didn't work for my son but it sure put him through hell trying to be straight.  He kept it all to himself because of his fear of recrimination, even from me, and at one time convinced himself he could live the life, hiding his homosexuality and live the life of a straight man with a wife and child.  His other option, which I'm thanking the gods he didn't seriously consider, was suicide because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to be with a woman.  Which he knew deep down inside he could never do.

So I was surprised that I didn't run away again, and try to find another path that didn't have those kinds of people on it.  I wasn't even tempted to leave.  And it didn't matter that there were so many people who chastised the man for his attitudes, although it certainly made me feel better.  I hope this means I'm growing more, spiritually.  When I won't let anyone else deter me from the path I'm on.  But I do know that it could happen again; someone could catch me in a moment and make me feel like their attitudes are representative of everyone.  But I hope I've grown enough that doesn't happen.