Use of Wiccan Symbol
on Veterans’ Headstones
Is Approved
By NEELA BANERJEE,
NYTunes on the Web, April 24, 2007
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Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency
Sgt.
Patrick Stewart's headstone now may include a pentacle. |
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WASHINGTON, April 23 — To
settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the
Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on
veterans’ headstones.
The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the
plaintiffs in the case.
Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres
nature and its cycles. Its symbol is the pentacle, a five-pointed star,
inside a circle.
Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate
the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a
few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but
the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit,
said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.
The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans
do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are
devil worshipers.
“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special
treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said
at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment
that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an
acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone
else.”
A Veterans Affairs spokesman, Matt Burns, confirmed that the “V.A. will be
adding the pentacle to its list of approved emblems of belief that will be
engraved on government-provided markers.”
“The government acted to settle in the interest of the families concerned,” Mr.
Burns added, “and to spare taxpayers the expense of further litigation.”
There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey
cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks
for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.
At least 11 families will be immediately affected by the V.A.’s decision, said
the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan church in
Wisconsin.
In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United
said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President
Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when
he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at
the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.
“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according
to a transcript. “I would hope the military officials would take a second
look at the decision they made.”
Americans United did not assert that the White House influenced the Veterans
Affairs Department. Under the settlement, Americans United had to return
the documents and could not copy them, though it could make limited comments
about their contents, Mr. Katskee said.
Americans United filed the lawsuit last November on behalf of several Wiccan
military families. Among the plaintiffs was Roberta Stewart, whose
husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, was killed in September 2005 in Afghanistan.
Ms. Stewart said she had tried various avenues to get the pentacle approved.
Late last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada, her home state, approved the placing
of a marker with a pentacle in a Veterans Affairs cemetery in Fernley, east of
Reno. But Ms. Stewart said she had continued to pursue the lawsuit because
she wanted the federal government to approve the markers.
Other religious groups that have often opposed Americans United supported the
effort to have the government approve the pentacle.
“I was just aghast that someone who would fight for their country and die for
their country would not get the symbol he wanted on his gravestone,” said John
W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which litigates many First
Amendment cases. “It’s just overt religious discrimination.”
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