{"id":9908,"date":"2006-10-11T13:02:51","date_gmt":"2006-10-11T20:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/10\/11\/symbolic-lawsuit.html"},"modified":"2006-10-11T13:02:51","modified_gmt":"2006-10-11T20:02:51","slug":"symbolic_lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/11\/symbolic_lawsuit.html","title":{"rendered":"Symbolic lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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.<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[…] 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As I wrote back in July (which includes a link to all the “approved” religious symbols):<\/p>\n

The \u201crecognized\u201d faiths with their own VA-approved symbols<\/a> include, among others, Christian sects (\u201cAaronic Order Church,\u201d \u201cUnited Moravian Church\u201d), Islam, Judaism, Sufism (\u201cReoriented\u201d), Mormonism, Buddhism, Eckankar, Humanism, \u201cSoka Gakkai International,\u201d \u201cIzumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii,\u201d Konko-Kyo, Hindiusm, Bahai, Atheism, The Native American Church of North America, Sikh, and the Church of World Messianity
\n(Izunome).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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. <\/p>\n

I hope the ACLU nails them to the wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/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":[27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9908","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":12591,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/14\/how_to_be_bloggable.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":0},"title":"How to be bloggable","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Mar-08 7:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, rather a list of 17 ways to keep from not being bloggable.\u00a0\u00a0This article by Cory Doctorow (BoingBoinger extraordinaire) is not saying how to be worthy of being blogged about,...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/01\/25\/all_the_news_th.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":1},"title":"All the news that’s fit to firewall","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Jan-05 8:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"Cory Doctorow asks an interesting question: if the traditional view of newspapers has been \"news today, fish wrap tomorrow,\" why do so many newspaper websites offer today's news for free,...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10098,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/06\/also_sprach_zar.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":2},"title":"Also Sprach Zarathustra","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 6-Sep-06 6:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting NYT article about Zoroastrianism, a 3000-year-old Persian religion that is slowly dying out due to demographics, intermarriage, and internal divisions. Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say...","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":25148,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/06\/this-is-the-report-about-colbert.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":3},"title":"This is the Report about Colbert","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Jan-12 6:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Fascinating NYT Magazine article about Stephen Colbert. #ddtb Embedded Link How Many Stephen Colberts Are There? A suburban dad. A fictional television blowhard. And now a political money launderer. How one funny guy became three.","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":13524,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/21\/standard_time.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":4},"title":"Standard Time","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Nov-08 7:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If Barack Obama accomplishes nothing else in his presidency but this, he will be a hero for generations to come.\u00a0 President-elect Obama wants to get rid of daylight saving time...","rel":"","context":"In "Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science\/environment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13112,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/19\/wholl_be_watching_the_wat.html","url_meta":{"origin":9908,"position":5},"title":"Who’ll be Watching the Watchmen?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Jul-08 2:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh my! 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Aside from a somewhat skimpier Silk Spectre outfit, and a bit more latex Ozymandias, the imagery, at least, is just...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908","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=9908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}