Wiccan vet grave marker again


The issue that would not die.

Pun intended.
The whole Pagan headstone thing keeps coming up again and again.

To me, it is a no-brainer. Any vet or serving military member who dies should be able to choose whatever emblem they want for their marker, religious or not. As far as I am concerned, if they served, they have MORE than earned the choice and no government should begrudge that choice.

But to openly accept some religious markers while the others haven't been "approved," well that is discrimination no matter what the spin.

Briggs' gods planned for him to come home that day. But had he died, he would have been denied a right given to countless other U.S. soldiers killed in battle: to have the symbol of his faith engraved on his U.S. military headstone.

"I have fought and nearly died in serving my country," Briggs said. "And I think the U.S. government should mind the law, mind the Constitution and do the right thing -- not only for me, but for guys who've died. Let their families rest in peace."

Briggs, who recently returned from Iraq, is one of thousands of Wiccans involved in a nationwide campaign aimed at forcing the Veterans Administration's National Cemetery Administration to allow the Wiccan pentacle, a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle, to be engraved on military headstones. There are roughly 1,800 Wiccans currently serving in the military, and the Wiccan community has been petitioning for pentacle approval for more than nine years,

This is one of those stories that I really wish would go away. Not because I do not agree with it, but because I run out of things to say about something so blinking obvious.

Parity test time.

If the Federal government denied Christian grave makers, do you think the Baptists and Catholics might be a tad upset?

Equal under the law.

Hat tip The Wild Hunt Blog.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - March 5, 2007 at 04:52 AM  Tag


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