A matter of grave consern

From The Washington Post:

At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes. But one space is blank. There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart.

That's because Stewart was a Wiccan, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to allow a symbol of the Wicca religion -- a five-pointed star within a circle, called a pentacle -- to be inscribed on U.S. military memorials or grave markers.

The department has approved the symbols of 38 other faiths; about half of are versions of the Christian cross. It also allows the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim crescent, the Buddhist wheel, the Mormon angel, the nine-pointed star of Bahai and something that looks like an atomic symbol for atheists.

Stewart, 34, is believed to be the first Wiccan killed in combat. He was serving in the Nevada National Guard when the helicopter in which he was riding was shot down in Afghanistan last September. He previously had served in the Army in Korea and Operation Desert Storm. He was posthumously awarded a Purple
Heart and a Bronze Star. His widow, Roberta Stewart, scattered his ashes in the hills above Reno and would like him to have a permanent memorial.

She said the veterans cemetery in Fernley offered to install a plaque with his name and no religious symbol. She refused.

"Once they do that, they'll forget me. They don't like having a hole in the wall," she said. "I feel very strongly that my husband fought for the Constitution of the United States, he was proud of his spirituality and of being a Wiccan, and he was proud of being an American."

Wicca is one of the fastest-growing faiths in the country. Its adherents have increased almost 17-fold from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The Pentagon says that more than 1,800 Wiccans are on active duty in the armed forces.

Wiccans still suffer, however, from the misconception that they are devil worshipers. Some Wiccans call themselves witches, pagans or neopagans. Most of their rituals revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Wiccans often pick and choose among religious traditions, blending belief in reincarnation and feminine gods with ritual dancing, chanting and herbal medicine.

Federal courts have recognized Wicca as a religion since 1986. Prisons across the country treat it as a legitimate faith, as do the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military, which allows Wiccan ceremonies on its bases.

"My husband's dog tags said 'Wiccan' on them," Stewart noted.

The reason for the holdup in giving this man his proper burial marker is that the five pointed star is associated with Satan worship in many people's minds. Wiccans, however, do not believe in the Christian or Jewish concept of the Devil (or the Islamic Iblis, for that matter).

So why do they use a symbol that has been associated with Satanism since the middle ages?Well in the early 1950's when a British fellow named Gardner was inventing the modern Witchcraft or Wiccan movement he cherry-picked from a whole grab bad of historical symbols, rituals and beliefs to fill out his new religion. The pentacle had long been associated with the supernatural so he co-opted it.

Now none of this matters as a matter of government policy. I have the constitutional right to worship a cheese sandwich if I so choose. And since we are all supposed to be equal before the law, if my sandwich religion requires that my grave be decorated with the likeness of a Kraft individually wrapped single and I fall in battle in defense of my country and if government custom is to provide a marker to for the graves of its fallen heroes, then they have to pony up.

The government is balking at providing a grave marker with a pentagram on it because a lot of conservative Christians object to what they perceive as a satanic symbol being paid for by their tax money. Christians should instead look at this as an opportunity for education and evangelism.

The fact is that Wicca would not exist today if it weren’t for a libidinous Limey a bit over 50 years ago who came up with a “religion” that would require women to take off their clothes and let him fondle their breasts (Google “the five-fold kiss”).

Wile this would certainly appeal to teenage boys it just might give an adult pause. Or not. A large segment of Wicca has been taken over by radical feminists who have dropped the need to be skyclad (naked) and turned the religion into little more than an extended screed against men.


Anyway, none of this matters to the question at hand. The man believed in Wicca and unless the government wants to stop giving any religious markers away they are going to eventually have to give this man his pentacle