{"id":8822,"date":"2006-04-11T06:14:24","date_gmt":"2006-04-11T13:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/04\/11\/the-va-and-symbolism.html"},"modified":"2006-04-11T06:14:24","modified_gmt":"2006-04-11T13:14:24","slug":"the_va_and_symb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/11\/the_va_and_symb.html","title":{"rendered":"The VA and Symbolism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over two years since I first wrote about it<\/a>, the VA is stilll shilly-shallying<\/a> about approving a symbol for Wicca on its tombstones and memorials<\/a> — despite having recognized symbols for any number of Christian sects (“Aaronic Order Church”? “United Moravian Church”?), Islam, Judaims, 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, the Church of World Messianity (Izunome) … some 38 symbols in all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So why the delay in approving the Wiccan pentacle? Ostensibly because there have been so few requests for it, and only recently did the VA not require certification from some sort of central body that the faith symbol was legitimate (now it can be a “central head or primary contact person”). More likely, I suspect, because of a certain squeamishness amongst some in the VA to recognize “witches” and to use something that looks like a “Satanic” symbol.<\/p>\n

As I noted back then, the problem with recognizing some <\/em>religious symbols is that you really have to recognize all of them, at least if you don’t want to run afoul of the First Amendment. Hopefully the “Real Soon Now” answers from the VA will turn out to be accurate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8822","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":9447,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/05\/but_some_religi.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":0},"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":4780,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/06\/symbolic.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":1},"title":"Symbolic","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Jan-04 2:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"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...","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":29917,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/21\/an-apology-that-misses-the-point.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":2},"title":"An apology that misses the point","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Aug-12 7:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"After a few days of \"I misspoke\" shilly-shallying, Rep. Akin has finally apologized for his \"legitimate rape victims don't get pregnant\" comment. Of course, what he says he meant was \"forcible,\" which doesn't help any:- Forcible rape victims can (and do) get pregnant, despite what Akin (who's on the House\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":9908,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/11\/symbolic_lawsuit.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":3},"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":129848,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/15\/ted-cruz-is-a-demagogue-and-a-dolt.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":4},"title":"Ted Cruz is a Demagogue and a Dolt","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Feb-16 8:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ted Cruz thinks we need to have an election before a new Supreme Court justice is nominated since, well, just because Obama was elected President last time we had an election (and the time before that) is no reason why he should get to actually be President or do any\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":16588,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/27\/state-of-the-union-2010.html","url_meta":{"origin":8822,"position":5},"title":"State of the Union 2010","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Jan-10 8:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, just did a live-Twitter of the SOTU.\u00a0 And now for my impressions (which will no doubt be buffeted and tempered by the various pundits over the coming days). 1. Obama remains a hell of a speaker.\u00a0 Compared to the stammering, yammering, good-ol-boy Dubya years, if he does nothing else\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"Obama and the State of the Union 2010","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/obama-sotu10-206x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822","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=8822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}