We are rising!

No-one outside Paganism seems to have noticed that the number of out and proud Pagans has doubled since the last census.

Census 2011
Animism 541
Occult 502
Druid 4,189
Heathen 1,958
Pagan 56,620
Pantheism 2,216
Reconstructionist 251
Shamanism 650
Thelemite 184
Wicca 11,766
Witchcraft 1,276
______________________
Total = 80,153

Not included in the above total: Traditional African Religion 588, Vodun 208, Taoism 4144, Shinto, 1075, New Age 698, Native American Church 127, Chinese Religion 182, Satanists 1,893.

Here's the Office of National Statistics page with the spreadsheets if you want to download a copy and play with the numbers yourself.

Census 2001
Pagan 30,569
Wiccan 7,227
Druid 1,657
Pantheist 1,603
Heathen 278
Asatru 92
Animism 401
Ancestor Worship 101
Celtic Pagan 508
______________________
Total 42,436

Liberal Christianity made me a better Wiccan

I am not a Christian, but I highly value the liberal Christian strand in Unitarianism, as its alternative interpretations of the new testament in particular have helped to liberate me from the oppressive and painful interpretations I received from my fundamentalist and evangelical upbringing. People who do not have that particular painful experience perhaps can't know the fear - and actual physical pain - that it induces. I am very grateful to liberal Christianity for liberating me from that fear. Despite being a Pagan since the age of 17, I still had that fear (of hell, basically) lurking at the bottom of my psyche, encased in a volcano of anger. Once the anger had gone, the fear was still there, and it is liberal Christian interpretations of the Bible that have liberated me from that fear.

On a more positive note, I also value the fact that I can find a lot of common ground with liberal Christians, on values, shared appreciation of the beauty of Nature, and frequently shared understandings of the nature of the Divine as immanent and loving and including both genders as well as transcending gender.

If we have travelled by very different paths and still arrived at a similar understanding, that suggests we might be onto something. I met an ex-Franciscan who has a remarkably similar apophatic understanding of the Divine. I have met Unitarian Christians with a deep appreciation of the Divine immanence in Nature.

As a dear liberal Christian friend remarked approvingly, "Ah, so liberal Christianity made you a better Wiccan?" To which I replied, "Yes."

Liberal Christianity liberated me from my fear so that I could concentrate on my spiritual path of joyous communion with the Divine in Nature, with spirits of place, and with the land.

What's wrong with the Incarnation?

Many Christians think that other religions don't like the idea of the Incarnation because they're offended by the idea of God becoming human.

The thing that is specifically offensive about the idea that Jesus is the only way to God is the idea that stems from it that all other religions are wrong, and that unless you have "accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour" you will go to hell. So according to this insane and offensive theology, that means Gandhi and other great luminaries are in hell.  (Then there's penal substitution theology, which is also offensive, but that is a separate issue.)

I don't have a problem with the idea of Jesus being divine. I do have a problem with the idea of his being the one and only incarnation of the godhead. As far as I'm concerned, we are all divine.

In polytheist religions, the idea of humans becoming divine, or the divine becoming human, crops up frequently. There's Krishna, who is an incarnation of Vishnu. There's Oðinn, who is either a deified human or a god who became human. There's Aradia, who was Diana's daughter and came to earth to teach Tuscan witches their craft, and how to resist oppression. There are many, many deities who became human, and humans who became deities. So the idea that other religions have a problem with the Incarnation because they don't like the idea of God becoming human is laughably ignorant.

In Judaism, the soul has three components - the nefesh (the animal soul, which disperses at death), the neshamah (the divine part, which returns to God at death), and the ruach (the breath of God, which gives life). The more spiritually developed you are, the greater the neshamah becomes. When Jesus told his disciples that he would send his ruach (his Holy Spirit) to be with the disciples at death, he meant he would send that component of his soul to be with them. This insight must have got lost in the early centuries of Christianity when the Judaic elements were eradicated from Christianity by opponents of "Judaizing".  Anyway, the point here is, that in Judaism, everyone is a child of God, and has God within them. (For more on this, see my earlier post, The Trinity and Jewish theology).

In the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), they say that everyone has "that of God" within them, and refer to the Inner Christ or the Inner Light. The idea is to uncover that light (not hiding it under a bushel) and let it shine.

In Unitarianism, which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity back in the 16th century, the view is usually that everyone has the Divine within them, too. James Martineau, a great 19th century member of the tradition (who actually identified as a Free Christian), said:

The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there; and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

What a truly great concept - the incarnation is true of all humans. Or as Shakespeare (religious beliefs unknown) so memorably put it:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals

Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

In Buddhism, we all contain the potential to become enlightened, to become a Buddha, to become divine. We are all Future Buddhas.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although they believe that Jesus is the one and only divine incarnation, they also have the concept of theosis, which means that because Jesus opened the way between the human and the divine, we can all become divine. Indeed, Jesus himself said, "I have said, ye are gods."

So, no, the thing that annoys people about the Incarnation is not the idea that God became human - it's the idea that it only happened once.

Everyone has "that of God" within them - the neshamah, the ruach, the seed of a Future Buddha, the potential for theosis.

The Endless Knot

By Yvonne Aburrow

Paperback, 49 Pages

Price: £5.99 

Ships in 3–5 business days

Preview

Poetry of place, experience, the seasons, and the sacred. 

Written over many years, these poems are the distillation of experiences of ritual, landscape and mythology. 

Lovers of landscape and nature will enjoy this collection. 

Also available as an eBook (suitable for Kindle and other formats)

Pantheism quiz

I just took the "Are You Atheist, Agnostic, Pantheist, Deist, Pagan or what?" quiz.

Here are my results:

Dualist Pantheism (100%)  
Literal Paganism / New Age / Animism (100%)  
Naturalistic Pantheism (80%)  
Agnosticism (75%)  
Idealist Pantheism (72%)  
Deism (65%)  
Panentheism (57%)  
Atheism / Secular Humanism (45%)  
Regular Monotheism (44%)


The trouble is, I don't know what a dualist pantheist is...  but there's a Wikipedia entry on it.

Actually, I find it really hard to classify my beliefs under any of these names. I think animist fits me quite well, though.

Pagan support for equal marriage

Pagans support equal marriage, and have done for decades.

Unfortunately, in England and Wales, Pagan opposite-sex weddings have no legal standing, and the government has no plans to change that. So - among Pagans, marriage is already equal - a Pagan priestess or priest will happily do your handfasting (wedding) for you, but it won't have any legal standing whether you are marrying someone of the opposite sex or the same sex. A Pagan priest or priestess will also happily do a wedding for transgender people, poly people etc. The Pagan Federation's homepage states that it "regards membership of any organisations that refuse to support freedom of religion and equality of race, gender, and sexual orientation, as incompatible with our aims, objectives and values."

In Scotland, the situation is different. Pagan opposite-sex weddings are legal, and Pagans have joined in the lobbying for same-sex marriage and religious civil partnerships. The Pagan Federation Scotland has signed the Equal Marriage Pledge (see under faith groups), along with the Quakers, MCC, Scottish Unitarian Association,  Humanists, Iona Community, 3 Liberal Jewish groups, and Changing Attitude Scotland (Episcopalians).

Christo-Pagans

So, is it possible to be a Christo-Pagan?

It depends on what kind of Christianity and what kind of Paganism you are trying to merge.

One approach to Christo-Paganism emphasises that Yahweh had a consort, the goddess Asherah. Another way to do it might be to regard Jesus as a dying and resurrecting god along the same lines as Attis, Adonis, Dumuzi, Tammuz, etc. Or you could be a henotheist who worships Yahweh and family whilst acknowledging the existence of other deities.

Certain kinds of Christianity are not compatible with Paganism. The type of Christianity that says we are all inherently sinful and fallen, and need an atoning sacrifice to save us, seems to me to be completely antithetical to Paganism.

But the kind of Christianity that emphasises compassion and forgiveness does seem compatible with Paganism. These virtues were extolled by ancient Roman polytheism.

I'm not sure if Gnosticism is compatible with Paganism, because Gnosticism was world-denying and Paganism is world-affirming - but I know people who identify as both. It's certainly possible to believe in gnosis alongside earth spirituality.

Personally, I could never call myself a Christian because too many people have been murdered in the name of Christianity, and because I do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the only "anointed one" - but others feel that the name can be reclaimed. Good for them.

It could also be pointed out that ancient pagans (in the form of Roman state religion) murdered a lot of Christians. But Christianity's record of genocide is considerably larger in both geographical scope and historical duration.

It's certainly possible to be a Unitarian and a Pagan - but then not all Unitarians are Christians. Even the ones who identify as Christian don't believe in vicarious atonement (Jesus dying for your sins) or Jesus being part of the godhead. They also respect other religions.

(Just in case you were disappointed that the previous post wasn't about Christo-Pagans.)

"Pagan Christianity"

Ha. I bet you thought this was going to be a blogpost about ChristoPagans, didn't you?

That's what I thought when I saw the title of this blogpost by Dyfed Wyn Roberts, Pagan Christianity.

But no, it's about a pair of bigots who have written a book complaining about all the "pagan" bits in Christianity.

I find the notion of expunging "pagan" practices from Christianity really offensive - but then I am a Pagan.

The Orthodox Church at least has the sense to practice inculturation in its missionary activities, whereby it preserves the bits of the pre-Christian culture that do not conflict with Christianity (which is most things).

I don't approve of converting people of other religions to Christianity, but if you must do so, at least do it with some respect and sensitivity towards them, as the Orthodox Church does.

The early church preserved many aspects of pagan culture which might otherwise have been lost. Snorri Sturluson wrote down the Eddas (Norse legends). The Pantheon in Rome was converted into a church (can we have it back please?) St Paul quoted two pagan poets, Epimenides and Aratus, in his famous speech in the marketplace in Athens.

Many customs which are supposedly "pagan" actually turn out to be only pre-Reformation folk customs.

Other practices (such as Christmas trees) may have been pagan or Christian in origin - no-one is quite sure.

Doubtless there are "pagan" bits in Christianity - including the myth of the dying and resurrecting god so beloved of most Christians - but they should be celebrated, not expunged.

God Collar

I am currently reading God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke. It's brilliant, hilarious, witty and heartfelt. I laughed out loud at several bits, especially the one about the turgidity of school assemblies, and the bit about the desire to fart in church and mix up the shoes in the foyer of mosques. I also agreed wholeheartedly with his views on The God Delusion.

The main premise of God Collar is that the author experiences a "God-shaped hole" but can't manage to actually believe in God (especially not the smitey "Old Testament" God), which is quite understandable - I can't manage to believe in a supernatural creator deity, especially not the smitey variety. I can manage a sort of mystical energy (but not a person) or maybe it's just an experience, like love - in which case, should we even call it God?

I was quite surprised at the degree to which the book focusses on the vengeful deity depicted in the early books of the "Old Testament", especially as the author acknowledges Karen Armstrong in the introduction, and Karen Armstrong has done much to bring biblical criticism to the non-specialist, and to point out how you get a different picture of God from different authors of the Bible.

The author wishes that there was a religion where his atheism would be respected, and that the religion was just about being nice to people. He quite likes Jesus but cannot see why Jesus' death is supposed to save anyone. He would like to have a religion that is compatible with reason and science, where the wonder of the universe as discovered by science is appreciated. He would also like a religion that does not consider all the other religions to be doing it wrong. And he would like a religion that doesn't persecute women and gays.

Well several such religions exist. There's Unitarianism (welcoming towards atheists and humanists since at least the 1920s, ordaining women since 1904, respecting other religions since it began in the 16th century, and welcoming LGBT people since 1970).

Alternatively, if you don't like Christian symbolism served with your religious smörgåsbord, try Paganism (LGBT-friendly, has priestesses and goddesses; respects other religions; though Pagans are less inclusive towards atheism).

And if you don't like singing, try the Quakers.

Or if you like meditation, try Buddhism (most Buddhists are non-theist).

None of these religions mind if you're an atheist, and they won't try to change your mind about it. They also acknowledge the validity of other religions, are welcoming towards women and gay people, politically left-leaning and environmentally friendly.

Libel

This article is as ill-informed, unpleasant and ridiculous a piece of claptrap as ever I have seen from the Daily Mail. It doesn't even qualify as journalism, as it contains only three facts, and one of those has incorrect conclusions drawn from it. The Druid Network has achieved charitable status. It does not represent the whole of Druidry (it is smaller than OBOD), and the Charity Commission is not the government, so it does not mean that Druidry has been officially recognised as a religion. The other facts are that there is an association for Pagan police officers, and Pagan chaplains can visit hospitals and prisons, but both of these were described in a vile and dismissive way.

Getting charitable status for one druid organisation doesn't make Paganism an official religion - there are no official religions in this country, with the possible exception of the established church. Pagans do not "dress up as ghosts". Paganism was not "tied up with" fascism - that old chestnut has been debunked several times over, most recently by the Independent pointing out just how involved the Catholic church was with the Nazis. And it's a bit of a rich irony for a Daily Mail columnist to be saying that, as the Mail is a notoriously right-wing paper and has bordered on fascist views in the past. Many Christians believe in the immanent Divine as well as the transcendent Divine. In case Melanie Phillips hasn't noticed, we have religious freedom in this country (fought for by Unitarians and other Dissenters). It doesn't undermine Christianity if other religions are treated with dignity - it raises the status of all religions. And Christianity is not the "bedrock creed" of this country - it was imposed by force. If anything, the bedrock creed of this country is tolerance, fairness, and pantheism.

Please sign the petition demanding an apology. I think it would have been better to go to the Press Complaints Commission, but then I think they have a ridiculous rule that the libel has to have been of an individual, and that named individual has to be the one to complain (which is a bit difficult if you're dead, like the poor guy who got libelled by the unpleasantly homophobic Jan Moir).

Will atheism supplant religion?

According to a blog at Psychology Today, atheism will replace religion because it provides a better explanation of how the world works. This is based on a Frazerian/Tylorian assumption that the primary function of religion is to explain how the world works.

I would argue that the primary function of religion is to provide a community of shared meaning, values and practice. Belief is secondary to these functions. Of course fundamentalists' explanations of how the world works (both morally and physically) are way off reality as evidenced by scientific research, personal experience, and any sense of spirituality.

The article suggests:

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached and that do not require slavish conformity to unscientific beliefs.

Not all religions require "slavish adherence to unscientific beliefs". The liberal and mystical tendency in religion has been questioning dogma for centuries. In the West, this questioning has resulted in four great liberal traditions: the Society of Friends (aka Quakers), the Unitarians, liberal Judaism, and the Pagan revival (which includes various traditions). None of these traditions requires adherence to a creed or even belief in God(s). They are about exploring the meaning of life (drawing on both secular and sacred sources of inspiration) among a community of shared values. In Islam, the mystical tradition of Sufism fulfils a similar role; and Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism are similarly diverse and include liberal perspectives. Please do some research before dismissing all religion as irrational and dogmatic.

The second aspect of this argument, that religion is about providing reassurance in an uncertain world, depends on what is meant by reassurance. Liberal religion provides the reassurance of having a community of shared values and interests, but it does not provide reassurance on the subject of life after death. Liberal religion is about enjoying being alive now, not about a future existence which is very uncertain.

Those mysterious snakes

Carl McColman has an excellent blogpost reflecting on St Patrick's Day and why Pagans don't regard it as a celebration. It's well worth a read.

That old chestnut about Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland does, as he suggests, seem a somewhat tenuous quote on which to base an accusation that he drove paganism out of Ireland. As he says, it went underground, and was most likely driven there by the entire power structure of the church and the higher echelons of society who had embraced Christianity because everyone else in Europe was doing it.

But it's a great shame that Christianity decided to abolish the old deities (or at least, the ones it couldn't assimilate as saints). When Buddhism arrived in new countries, it simply declared deities irrelevant to its message and let people carry on honouring them.

I do agree with his conclusion that everyone should work together for the eradication of slavery and the promotion of social justice.

Solon's commandments

The Ten Commandments of Solon:
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.60):

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.

Christian intolerance in South Africa

Sorry to see that South Africa is about 20 years behind the times in the matter of Christian nutters releasing ridiculous twisted slander about Pagan festivals. And it's a reminder for the rest of us not to remain complacent - extremist Christian slanders are always rumbling along in the background. But it's also important to remember that many many Christians want to live in peace with Pagans and actively promote genuine interfaith dialogue.

Minority Review - The Dance

In the southern hemisphere the feast of Beltain is celebrated on the last day of October and the first day of November around a celebratory 'May'-pole. The dance of the Maypole is a symbolic act of fertility magic in which male and female partners, each holding ribbons attached to a central pillar, dance in opposite directions whilst weaving toward and away from the pole, around an erect pillar of wood decorated with flowers. Maypole dancing is an ancient (pre-Christian) and wide-spread form of western European folk dance.

This year, as every year in living memory in this country under the fascist white Christian Nationalist government, amidst the Beltain celebrations, venerations, joy and laughter in covens and Pagan gatherings across the country, the feint reek of Christian agitation against Pagans once again focussed on Halloween. The agitators? Fanatical followers of Peter Hammond's Africa Christian Action network.

Community among Unitarians and Pagans

As a long-term participant in Pagan groups (since 1990) and having recently joined a Unitarian church (for those who don't know, there are plenty of Pagans in British Unitarianism), I have been mentally comparing the two. There is no clear "winner" but the comparison is interesting.

Pagans are more focussed on individual friendships; Unitarians are more focused on gathering in community.

Unitarians are better at including everyone in the community, even if they are different from others in some way. (Lesson for Pagans - we need to focus on shared values instead of differing beliefs.)

In a crisis, Pagan friends will rally round, which is great, but if you want a trained full-time minister, with all that that entails, then you're more likely to find one via Unitarianism.

In terms of age and class and education, Unitarians are more diverse than Pagans. This is probably because Paganisms haven't been around so long.

In terms of the values we embrace, Unitarians are much less diverse than Pagans. Even though a Christian Unitarian may differ from a Pagan Unitarian in the mythology they happen to like, their values are remarkably similar.

Unitarians are better at focussing on values and regarding beliefs as less important. Unitarians have more shared values in common, simply because we are very explicit about what those values are. (Hopefully Pax's recent Pagan Values Blogging Month will go some way towards changing that - and I hope it will happen again in 2010).

Both communities are inclusive and welcoming and non-judgmental.

I'd be interested to hear from UU Pagans on this.

Incidentally, while I am still philosophically pagan, I have stopped referring to myself as Pagan (I now call myself Unitarian and Wiccan) because it is no longer clear what "Pagan" actually means (due to things like the reburial issue).

Pagan charities?

We don't need specifically Pagan charities for general causes that are already being addressed by other charities, because:

• we're not trying to attract converts by saying "Look how compassionate we are; we're the best religion"
  
• why replicate the work of large secular charities? It would only increase administration costs and decrease the amount that actually reaches the people who need help
• we're not big enough to organise our own charities

Perhaps we do need self-administered charity audits to demonstrate that we are "doing our bit". We often get flak in interfaith contexts because there aren't any specifically Pagan charities.

We may need Pagan charities for causes that we care about that no-one else cares about; and these are the charities that Pagans have started.

Criteria for theology

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

~ John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

I think any explanation of the nature of the universe should be elegant and the simplest possible solution to the problem (so it could actually be quite complex, whilst still being the simplest possible explanation). Physicists often talk about elegance and simplicity as criteria for their theories about how the world works. Also I think we should distinguish between theories (large bodies of complex reasoning backed by copious amounts of evidence) and hypotheses (propositions about how the world works that have yet to be proven).

Theological explanations should also be internally consistent and logical (even if the logic is different from conventional forms of logic), as well as consistent with the fact that there are millions of people with a different explanation. Pagan theological formulations usually take into account the plurality of religious beliefs; Christian theological formulations signally fail in this regard.  For example, most Pagans say that other people are following their own unique spiritual path in their own cultures; there's no drive to convert others to Paganism (Jews and Sikhs also believe this).  Most Christians believe that Christ is the only means of accessing the Divine, and many believe that non-Christians won't be "saved" (this fails to explain why other faiths are so satisfying for their adherents).  Theologians should also practice triangulation, comparing their explanations with those of other religions and philosophies, and with science, to see if they still make sense.

Many theologians claim that theology is resistant to logic because the Divine is paradoxical: but   paradoxes can often be resolved by looking at the thing from a different perspective - like the old chestnut about "God is no where and God is now here".

theoretical models of Paganism

I was wondering if Heelas and Woodhead's four categories of congregational religion were useful for thinking about Pagan and related traditions too.

Some voudouisants stress the all-powerfulness of the loa and the relative powerlessness of humans — could this be an example of a religion of difference?  And when it really focusses on experience of the loa in possession, could that be an example of a religion of experiential difference? Many Pagans speak of being chosen by a deity (and having little choice about which deity picked them) — this also seems to stress the relative powerlessness of humans in the face of divine prerogatives.

Some reconstructionists stress the similarity of deities to humanity, do not practice magic, and stress the importance of tradition — could this be an example of a religion of humanity?

Many other Pagans stress the importance of inner experience and cultivate individuality — could this be an example of a religion of experiential humanity?

No to bigotry, yes to life

I've written before about the difference between interfaith dialogue, evangelism and proselytising.

Now a particularly sickening and insidious example of "evangelism" (or is it proselytising?) has been highlighted by my fellow Wiccan blogger over at Witches and Scientists.

So, a message to Christians of an evangelical and/or proselytising persuasion:

People of other religions than your own are not "lost". They didn't get "sucked into" the other religion because they somehow failed to notice the existence of Christianity. If they looked at Christianity, they probably rejected the disgusting doctrines espoused by some Christians, but not all, of exclusivity (the idea that only Christians can get to heaven), penal substitution, and the idea that the divine isn't immanent in the world, and is only masculine. They probably rejected the utterly sick idea of "dying to the world and living in Christ". They probably saw the humanity and spirituality of a gay friend and rejected the sick and perverse doctrines that seek to prevent that gay friend living and loving to the full.

Instead, we embraced the idea that all religions are paths to the Divine (with the possible exception of those espousing the above-mentioned doctrines); that the Divine is immanent in the world - that each rock and tree and living being is filled with the Divine - and that the messages of compassion, love and spirituality shine forth everywhere, in all times and places. And that all forms of love and pleasure are sacred, rituals of the Goddess of life and love (including same-sex love).

So, no thanks, we don't need the narrow, warped, cramped, life-denying, exclusivist, dreary creed of the sort of Christians who write utter drivel like "Generation Hex".

We are very happy to embrace as kindred spirits the kind of Christians who are prepared to acknowledge that other religions and lifestyles are valid paths to the Divine (and there are many more of them every day, thank the gods) but we will never, never compromise with the evil bigots who promote homophobia, bigotry, and hatred of other religions.

sexual ethics

Just spotted this interesting chart of different religions' attitudes to sexual ethics in 1994. Well, if it was a choice between those seven, I'd rather be a Buddhist. Since they omitted Paganism, here's a summary:

Pagan attitudes to....
Sex between consenting teenagers	OK as long as they use contraception
Sex between an adult and a teenager	Unacceptable (difference of power)
Premarital sex	Blessed ("All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals")
Extramarital sex	Only if both parties to the marriage agree to it
Divorce	It's a fact of life (and is provided for in the wording of the handfasting ceremony)
Masturbation	Fine
Abortion	Most Pagans are pro-choice
Contraceptives	Encouraged
Married clergy	Married, single, we're not fussy
Female clergy	Yay! Priestesses are everywhere
Homosexual orientation	Blessed (fabulous actually)
Homosexual sex acts	Blessed ("All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals")
Same-sex weddings	Marvellous
Ordination of homosexuals	Lovely (you just try and stop 'em)

It would be interesting to know if there was any difference between different Pagan traditions on any of these issues.