{"id":4780,"date":"2004-01-06T14:47:02","date_gmt":"2004-01-06T21:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4780"},"modified":"2004-01-06T14:47:02","modified_gmt":"2004-01-06T21:47:02","slug":"symbolic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/06\/symbolic.html","title":{"rendered":"Symbolic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet another indication of the — well, I won’t say trouble<\/i>, but I will say complications <\/i>— you get into when the government interacts with religion.<\/p>\n

As a veteran, the VA will provide you with a tombstone, within certain regulations as to content. Part of what can show up on the headstone are various religious symbols. Some 32 symbols are available, everything from an array of Christian denominations to symbols for members of the Native American Church of Amercia, Hinduism, the Tenrikyo Church, Sufism Reoriented, Ekankar, Baha’i, Buddhism, Unitarians, various others, and even a symbol for avowed Atheists (an “A” within an Atom, if you’re curious).<\/p>\n

The full list with examples can be seen on the official VA form<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The complication is, of course, that once you start recognizing some <\/i>symbols, it’s difficult for the government to justify not recognizing more<\/i>, including ones that some folks would have fits over, such as the Wiccan pentagram. <\/p>\n

The VA has responded to requests for such markers with, well, stonewalling <\/a>via “We’re putting together new regulations to cover just that sort of thing” letters for several years. Hence an online petition<\/a>, supported by a Yahoo group<\/a>, which seeks to get the VA to recognize the pentagram as a legitimate symbol (just as the US military’s chaplaincy recognizes Wicca as a legitimate religion). <\/p>\n

Of course, having the government “recognize” which religions are “legitimate” is also fraught with peril, but that’s the part of the ongoing tension between religion and the state. Something to consider.<\/p>\n

(via Rey<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet another indication of the — well, I won’t say trouble, but I will say complications — you get into when the government interacts with religion. As a veteran, the…<\/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":"","_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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"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":4780,"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":8822,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/11\/the_va_and_symb.html","url_meta":{"origin":4780,"position":1},"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":4774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/08\/government_reli.html","url_meta":{"origin":4780,"position":2},"title":"Government, religion, and … flags?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jan-04 8:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"The US Supreme Court is considering hearing a case against the Mississippi state flag, which contains the Confederate battle emblem. Unlike most such suits against Confederate symbols, though, the suit...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mississippi","src":"\/blog\/images\/mississippi.gif","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7550,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/02\/07\/and_where_does.html","url_meta":{"origin":4780,"position":3},"title":"And where does it stop?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Feb-05 1:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As certain folks in the EU militate toward banning the swastika and other Nazi symbols, others have jumped on the bandwagon and said, hey, if we're going to ban the...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"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":4780,"position":4},"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":45696,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/08\/a-plethora-of-patches-provoke-pondering.html","url_meta":{"origin":4780,"position":5},"title":"A Plethora of Patches Provoke Pondering","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Oct-14 4:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"What's remarkable to me about this comic book advert of embroidered patches is how eclectic they are. There are recycling symbols, Black Power patches, Confederate flags, a Bicentennial logo, cartoon characters, automotive logos, peace signs, happy faces,ecology symbols, various rock group emblems, various counter-culture symbols, vapid slogans -- there's no\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4780","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=4780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}