Wiccans get grave marker symbol

[thedrifter]

Wiccans get grave marker symbol
By Scott Bauer - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Apr 23, 2007 12:43:10 EDT

MADISON, Wis. — Wiccans will be allowed to have the symbol of their religion placed on grave markers in national cemeteries under a lawsuit settlement with the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday.

The settlement calls for the Wiccans’ pentacle, a five-pointed star representing earth, air, fire, water and spirit to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.

There are 11 families nationwide that are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., and a party to the lawsuit.

“I am glad this has ended in success in time to get markers for Memorial Day,” she said.

The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in November by veterans’ widows and others alleging that the VA has stalled for more than nine years in recognizing the pentacle. The case, which will be dismissed under the settlement, was scheduled to go to trial in June in federal court in Madison.

The pentacle joins 38 religious symbols the VA already permits on gravestones. They include commonly recognized symbols for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, as well as those for smaller religions such as Sufism Reoriented, Eckankar and the Japanese faith Seicho-No-Ie.

The pentacle was already listed as an acceptable symbol Monday morning on the VA’s Web site.

“This settlement has forced the Bush administration into acknowledging that there are no second-class religions in America, including among our nation’s veterans,” said Rev. Barry W. Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the Wiccans. “It is a proud day for religious freedom in the United States.”

The VA sought the settlement in the interest of the families involved and to save taxpayers the expense of further litigation, VA spokesman Matt Burns said. Under the settlement, the VA agreed to pay $225,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.

The government also agreed to settle when it became clear the Wiccans’ application to have the pentacle recognized would be “favorably considered” under new rules the VA was working on, Burns said.

A nature-based religion, the Wiccan faith is founded on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons. Wiccans have argued that the pentacle has gotten a bad reputation because people don’t understand the religion or its imagery. Variations of the pentacle not accepted by the religion have been used in horror movies as a sign of the devil.

The lawsuit argued that the VA’s refusal to act on requests to permit the symbol on veterans’ grave markers violated Wiccans’ constitutional rights of freedom of speech, religion and due process.

The lawsuit also said it made no sense for Wiccan symbols to be banned from grave markers when Wiccan soldiers can list their faith on dog tags, Wiccan organizations are allowed to hold services on military installations, and the Army Chaplains Handbook includes an explanation of the religion.

The lawsuit was filed by Circle Sanctuary; Isis Invicta Military Mission, a Wiccan and Pagan congregation serving military personnel based in Geyserville, Calif.; Jill Medicine Heart Combs, whose husband is severely ill; and two widows of Wiccans — Roberta Stewart of Nevada and Karen DePolito of Utah.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Wiccans celebrate settlement allowing symbol on gravestones
The VA had a longstanding exclusion of the pentacle on military tombstones; the legal settlement heads off a trial.

By Pamela Miller, Star Tribune

For Jim Mosser, a Marine Corps veteran and practitioner of the Wiccan faith, Monday's legal settlement allowing the pentacle on military tombstones "has been a long time coming."

Mosser, 45, a computer technician from St. Louis Park who served in the Marines in the United States and Japan from 1981 to 1985, said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' longstanding exclusion of the Wiccan emblem "was disheartening and hurtful."The armed forces recognize us [on dogtags and in military chaplains' handbooks, for instance]," Mosser said. "But if a Wiccan soldier made the ultimate sacrifice, the VA wouldn't allow it on the tombstone. So this is a great step forward."

The settlement, which heads off a June trial in federal court in Madison, Wis., calls for the pentacle, a circled five-pointed upright star, to be placed on military gravestones within 14 days for 11 families who had requested it. That's well in time for Memorial Day. The symbol, the 39th to have agency approval, has been added to the agency's list at www.cem.va.gov/cem/hm/hmemb.asp.

No requests for pentacles on gravestone have been made at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, said Don Emond, the cemetery's assistant director. Information about the symbol's availability will now be part of standard information offered by the veterans agency and funeral directors, he said.

Wicca is an nature-based religion that falls under the umbrella of pagan traditions. The pentacle star's points stand for earth, air, fire, water and spirit. Satanists occasionally co-opt the symbol by turning it upside down, an act deeply offensive to Wiccans.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, there were 274,000 Wiccans and pagans nationwide in 2001. Minnesota has several thousand, estimates Penny Tupy, vice president of the Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance, a coalition that in February held a State Capitol rally pushing for approval of the pentacle.

"We're absolutely thrilled by the settlement," said Tupy, of Prescott, Wis.

For Elysia Gallo, acquisitions editor at Llewellyn Worldwide, a publications company in Woodbury, the settlement is about more than the pentacle. "Finally, Wicca and other forms of neopaganism are being taken seriously as valid spiritual paths," said Gallo, 32, of St. Paul. "I would hope no other religious group has to go through what we went through with the VA."

Gallo said that Llewellyn, one of the oldest New Age publishers in the nation, has a guidebook for Wiccans in the military slated for publication next year that will include information about religious rights and responsibilities, as well as "spells and meditations."

The pentacle long has been "a powerful and explosive symbol," said Penny Edgell, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. "Fair or not, it is associated by those on the Christian right with witchcraft, which they don't necessarily differentiate from Satanism."

Some also are uncomfortable with the countercultural definitions of gender, sexuality and family espoused by some pagans, Edgell said. "So a whole host of issues may have underlain this debate."

The settlement is an important sign of increasing religious diversity in a country that, while legally subscribing to separation of church and state, has been culturally Christian, she said.

"In polls, we see an increasing number of Americans claiming no religious preference or saying they are spiritual, but not religious," she said. That trend, she said, may have helped open the way for a more benign view of the pentacle.

Mosser said the debate has put a positive spotlight on the Wiccan religion.

"There's been more truthful information about us put out by the media in the past few months than in many years," he said. "For the first time, I've had people say to me, 'I didn't know what Wiccans really believe in till now.'

"This isn't just about Wiccans and the pentacle, but about religious tolerance of all kinds," he said.


Pamela Miller • 612-673-4290 • pmiller@startribune.com

Ellie