I am very aware the most Wiccans are very accepting of homosexuals. But in Gerald Gardner's original views he stated that homosexuality brought down the 'Curse of the Goddess'. What Gardner mean by this?
Gardner viewed Wicca as a fertility cult, therefore any sex that didn't naturally lead to reproduction was pointless in his opinion. Whether he believed that outside of the Wiccan circle is up for debate though it's likely he was a product of of his time and had homophobic tendencies. He did die just as the contraceptive pill was being made freely available so whether he'd consider sex between heterosexual couples that didn't lead to pregnancy to also incur the 'curse of the goddess' is unknown.
I can't actually find the part about homosexuality in the Ardanes.
Lines 153-155 of the 161 Laws read;
"It has been found that practicing the art doth cause a fondness between aspirant and tutor, and it is the cause of better results if this be so.
And if for any reason this be undesireable, it can easily be avoided by both persons from the outset firmly resolving in their minds to be as brother and sister or parent and child.
And it is for this reason that a man may be taught only by a woman and a woman by a man, and women and women should not attempt these practices together. So be it ordained."
These 161 Laws are NOT the work of Gardner, though. They are directly based on the Ardanes and those were written/delivered by Gardner.
I have checked multiple different copies/versions of the Ardanes and I cannot any equivalent of the 161 Laws entry on homosexuality. The closest is that everything in the Ardanes is spoken of in male/female terms.
The curse of the Goddess is found in the Ardanes, however! Only one entry ever actually mentions what this curse entails;
"And if any break these laws, even under torture, The Curse of the Goddess shall be upon them, so they never be reborn on earth, And may the remain where they belong, in the Hell of the Christians. "
The hell of the christians!!! I thought wiccans didnt believe in hell. . . Wicca isnt what its said to be. And its changed alot over the years. Thats why i left it, and now believe in my own thing. Ode to the eccletic pagan!
I know, I find that part about the Christian Hell pretty baffling, too. This is made even more so by the fact that in his book The Meaning of Witchcraft Gardner not only expressly states that he does not believe in Satan, but he goes so far as to say that "Crowley, like most intelligent people, did not believe in Satan" (Ch. 7).
So if you are bad you will be sent to the Hell of the Christians, but you are stupid if you believe that it's like what the Christians believe.
Wicca is a fertility based religion therefore ideally its practitioners should be fertile. The last I check gay men and women are still fertile. Now in certain Wiccan rites the Great Rite being one of them there is sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. I don't think we as LGBT's can perform the Great Rite unless we choose to be hetero for a night. However I think that would greatly diminish the Rite because it is lacking that love and raw attraction.
