Author and Columnist
(Okay, This is a side note, as I forgot about this entry: Since I started they actually DID find out I was a Pagan. My slip, of course. I had New Worlds send to Kate's house under a pet name for her. But they don't know that their daughter is a Pagan as well. Though I am totally sure the suspect it. They spoke with her briefly about it, not me. So, yay you get added realism, as I will incorporate what they said to Kate.)
In Kate's parents' shoes, I am not positive that I would want my daughter dating you--but she could have done far worse.
The mild Paganism--and it was only ever mild--would not be the biggest issue. Catholic parents concerned that you might be not only despoiling her innocent body but her eternal soul might say otherwise.
Kate was never Pagan, only playing along with you because she loved you. You knew that as a teenager. Experimenting with being a witch is only a few steps below drugs and a few above philosophy. It is, for all but the devout and mentally imbalanced, harmless.
I am still Pagan, it will not surprise you to know. It might surprise others. Aside from some tasteful jewelry, a dusty altar above my bookcase, and my books, I don't make a show of it. I haven't been to a public ritual years, in part because the only reliable source of these, Rhianna, focuses on the Divine Feminine. Men are no longer invited to rituals. Amber ceased to feel close to that group or attend these ceremonies, too busy with the mundane needs of her life. All I do is say "Blessed Be" when I see a startling full moon and try to acknowledge Samhain, Yule, and Beltane when they come around. The greatest magickal working is the hypersigil of my books, which boils down to continuing to write them to put energy toward being a recognized author. Hardly earth-shattering.
As soul tempters go, you are tepid. You never had a problem with their Catholicism. I still know by heart the prayer that they said over every meal. Their practice of it did not make you uneasy, but the understanding that the pentacle under your shirt made you corrupt in their eyes did. For that--if not for sleeping with their daughter--you were marked as a small threat.
That you were Pagan was a source of low-grade embarrassment for you. You didn't feel others would understand or respect it. It may have felt true to you and you had experiences that validated your person gnosis, but you comprehended that people made certain assumptions when hearing one call oneself a witch. In college, you will bristle when PURE, Pagans United for Religious Education, shouts into the hallway that they eat babies.
Your religion became, in a sense, another accessory. Or, I suppose more precisely, much of your exterior life became a complement to how you felt about the world. You wore too much black and rocked no end of silver jewelry in excess. You wore too much of your "weird" on the outside and it pigeonholed you. You wanted to be yourself without having to announce it at a distance. You can honor the Goddess without a pentacle the size of a dinner plate on your shirt. Without that artifice, people are more likely to take your faith seriously.
(Okay, I am bored of this now and it is the reason I keep putting off sending this)
Hey, buddy. If it is boring for you to write it, it is boring for other people to read it.