{"id":11021,"date":"2007-04-23T16:51:31","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T23:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/04\/23\/perhaps-all-religions-can-be-treated-equally.html"},"modified":"2007-04-23T16:51:31","modified_gmt":"2007-04-23T23:51:31","slug":"perhaps_all_religions_can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/23\/perhaps_all_religions_can.html","title":{"rendered":"Perhaps all religions can<\/i> be treated equally"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I’ve blogged<\/a> on<\/a> this<\/a> before<\/a>.  Happily, there’s finally a “happy” ending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

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\u2019 headstones.<\/p>\n

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced today by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. The Veterans Affairs Department confirmed the settlement<\/p>\n

[…] \u201cThe Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,\u201d the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference today. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Veterans Affairs spokesman, Matt Burns, confirmed that the \u201cV.A. will be adding the pentacle to its list of approved emblems of belief that will be engraved on government-provided markers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The official reason for the VA dragging its heels may never be known, but …<\/p>\n

\n

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said it found e-mails and memoranda referring to negative comments that President Bush made about Wicca during a 1999 interview with the ABC program \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d 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 in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think witchcraft is a religion,\u201d Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript. \u201c I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans United did not assert that the White House influenced the Veterans Affairs Department. Under the terms of the settlement, Americans United had to return the documents and could not copy them, although the group could make limited comments about their contents, Mr. Katskee said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s about time.<\/p>\n

And … there it is — lucky number 37<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(via Margie)<\/p>\n

<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve blogged on this before.  Happily, there’s finally a “happy” ending. To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9908,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/11\/symbolic_lawsuit.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":0},"title":"Symbolic lawsuit","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Oct-06 1:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"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...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9447,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/05\/but_some_religi.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":1},"title":"But some religions are more equal than others","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Jul-06 10:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Alas the ongoing saga of the VA and their failure to recognize Wicca as a religion warranting a symbol on headstones has come to an unhappy (for the moment) conclusion....","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8822,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/11\/the_va_and_symb.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":2},"title":"The VA and Symbolism","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Apr-06 6:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"Over two years since I first wrote about it, the VA is stilll shilly-shallying about approving a symbol for Wicca on its tombstones and memorials -- despite having recognized symbols...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4738,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/15\/passages.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":3},"title":"Passages","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Jan-04 10:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"The last known combat-wounded US WWI vet has passed away. Alfred Pugh, the last known combat-wounded U.S. veteran of World War I, has died. He was 108, only 10 days...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133200,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/03\/oh-in-case-you-were-wondering-about-the-trump-university-lawsuit.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":4},"title":"Oh, in case you were wondering about the Trump University lawsuit","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Apr-17 9:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"The lawsuits finally got settled, at $25M, and the settlement was signed off on by the judge last week.'The settlement applies to three separate lawsuits \u2014 two class-actions and a fraud case. The $25 million deal includes payouts to more than 6,000 Trump U students who paid thousands of dollars\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15157,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/09\/go-massachusetts-go.html","url_meta":{"origin":11021,"position":5},"title":"Go, Massachusetts, Go!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 9-Jul-09 11:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is suing the Federal Government over the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define and regulate marriage as it sees fit, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said. The 1996 law denies federal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}