Pagan Pride Celebrated, 2000

September 19, 2000

Source: Los Angeles Times

On September 19, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that "it's Pagan Pride Day, and hundreds of witches are out of the broom closet, flying high. In a meeting room at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Long Beach, a priestess of the Yoruban goddess Yemaya is teaching an enraptured group of four men and four women how to read Tarot cards. The priestess, June Gerron from Orange, is telling her class that the woman-with-a-lion card is often interpreted as 'power over your animal self--grrrrr!'...At the gathering Saturday, all manner of witches, priestesses and pagans turned up to celebrate the autumnal equinox, assert their religious rights and promote accurate images of their faith. Let it be known: This is not a religion of green-faced hags, evil warlocks, black magic and satanic sex orgies. Those are Hollywood fantasies, pagans say or deliberate smears by Christian zealots who have mis-characterized their nature-loving religion since the days of the Inquisition."