Symbolic lawsuit

I’ve blogged on this before (and before and before), and so has BD, And he managed to spot this
article from the beginning of the month — the NYT has this article it behind their pay wall, but plenty of other sources have it mirrored out there.

Bottom line: after years of dithering by the VA, a group of Wiccans has finally sued to allow their religious symbol of choice — a pentacle — to be engraved on military headsstones alongside other “approved” symbols.

US military veterans are entitled to have their headstones engraved by the government with a symbol of their religion. Families of the deceased may choose from emblems representing a variety of 18 Christian churches, a number of Buddhist sects, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism and atheism (represented by an atom with an A inside) — 38 symbols in all.

But the Wiccan pentacle is not allowed because the Department of Veterans Affairs has neither approved nor disallowed it despite various petitions over the last nine years.

[…] The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the plaintiffs, brought the action in the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Washington. A spokesman for the VA did not respond to requests for an interview.

In the years that Wiccans have been petitioning, the department has approved emblems for at least six groups, including the obscure Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii.

As I wrote back in July (which includes a link to all the “approved” religious symbols):

The “recognized” faiths with their own VA-approved symbols include, among others, Christian sects (“Aaronic Order Church,” “United Moravian Church”), Islam, Judaism, Sufism (“Reoriented”), Mormonism, Buddhism, Eckankar, Humanism, “Soka Gakkai International,” “Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii,” Konko-Kyo, Hindiusm, Bahai, Atheism, The Native American Church of North America, Sikh, and the Church of World Messianity
(Izunome).

I am dismayed that it’s taken a law suit to advance this any further. This is not a matter of “endorsing” a particular faith, but recognizing the beliefs of the fallen. I can accept that there needs to be some sort of controls over what symbols are approved — but the approval should be a formality, like an “icon” moderation at a web site. If we can have the faiths (or lack thereof) above represented, including a Wiccan symbol is only just.

I hope the ACLU nails them to the wall.