Pentacle on military memorial stone
There are 38 religious symbols approved for placement on government-issued grave markers and memorials for military veterans, but the pentacle isn't one of them.
The five-pointed star within a circle that represents the Wiccan religion, a neo-pagan, earth-based belief system, is not on the list.
As a result, the space reserved for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart's memorial plaque at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Nev., remains empty. Stewart, 34, was killed in September 2005 when his Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. He was a follower of the Wiccan tradition, and his wife is fighting to have the fact engraved in stone.
"My husband's faith got him through the war in Desert Storm, through life's problems. It is our spirituality," Roberta Stewart, 36, said. "This is who we are as Americans."
The effort to get the symbol of a tradition that for many conjures up thoughts of devil worship and steaming cauldrons has been going on for nine years, according to leaders in the Wiccan community. In the interim, other emblems have been approved by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Earlier applications by Wiccan groups and families have not been approved because they were incomplete or because of a prior requirement that a centralized organization be listed on the application, according to Josephine Schuda, a V.A. spokeswoman. The Wiccan religion has no centralized body. That requirement has since been eliminated.
Wiccan leaders and their supporters believe they are being stonewalled and denied their religious freedom.
"It is a violation of [Stewart's] First Amendment rights because other religious groups are being given something that she is being denied solely on basis of her religion," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "Every atheist can get a symbol on their markers or headstones; humanists can; Presbyterians can, but not Wiccans."
The faith is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt entity. Wiccans in the military can list their religion on their dog tags and about 1,800 serving active-duty have done that, according 2005 statistics from the Department of Defense.
A final decision has not yet been made on the Stewart application, according to a statement released by the V.A. The decision has been deferred until the agency revises its current policies, which were revised last year. Decisions on applications to add other symbols also have been postponed.
In the interim, V.A. officials have offered Roberta Stewart a temporary marker, which would be changed if the symbol is approved. Stewart has declined.
"To me it's a disgrace to take the plaque without the emblem of my husband's religious beliefs," Stewart said. "We have every right to religious freedom and the expression of it."
At least five families of veterans have sought to have their loved ones memorialized with a Wiccan symbol, said the Rev. Selena Fox, a high priestess and founder of the Circle Sanctuary Wiccan community in Wisconsin. Fox has been working with Roberta Stewart.
The problem, say followers of the tradition, is essentially one of reputation complicated by a history of Salem witch burnings and fear of new religions.
"The standard belief is that [Wiccans] worship Satan, the Christian demigod of evil, that they perform hurtful rituals, injure animals and people," said Franklin Evans, board president of the Delaware Valley Pagan Network. "What they don't understand is that none of these things have ever been true."
The Wiccan tradition is an earth-based religion that focuses on the veneration of a God or Goddess, a reverence for nature and the way in which what occurs in nature affects the lives of followers, said Helen Berger, a professor at West Chester University and the author of Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Wiccans and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Followers are initiated into the tradition and then practice alone or in groups called covens. They have ritual observances for cycles of the moon and follow central tenets, including an admonition to harm no one and that harm done to others will return to the perpetrator three-fold.
Some Wiccans practice witchcraft, or magic, and call themselves witches, Berger said. Some don't. The two can be mutually exclusive.
The number of people identifying themselves as Wiccan in the American Religious Identification Survey jumped from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which conducted the survey. Berger estimates that the national population is more than 250,000 - and growing.
The Delaware Valley Pagan Network believes there are between 5,000 and 10,000 pagans in the area, most of them Wiccans.
Of the many people who explore the tradition, only a few stay, Berger said.
"Some get a spell book, and realize they can't make Joe down the street fall in love with them, and they leave," Berger said. Those who stay, do so for the spirituality, Berger said.
Patrick Stewart came to the tradition through his wife. He wasn't raised in a specific faith, Roberta Stewart said. He was an outdoorsman and devotee of Native American spirituality. When the couple met, they merged their two traditions.
The Stewarts were married in 2003 in the middle of a desert by a high priestess. It was a "a full Celtic, Native American and Wiccan ceremony," Stewart said.
"There was no doubt in my mind that I had been with him in many lifetimes and our souls had been reconnected again," Stewart said.
Patrick Stewart served 11 years of active duty before joining the National Guard in 2001. He served in Desert Storm and Korea. Stewart, who had his Wiccan faith on his dog tags, was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart after he was killed.
His wife is now lobbying government officials. Nevada's Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said he is supporting Stewart, who says that other politicians, including Nevada Republican State Rep. Jim Gibbons, are behind her cause. On July 4, Stewart spoke at a religious freedom rally in Washington, attended by about 300 people.
Her next step will be to hire an attorney.
I know I haven't touched on this topic really, mostly because I don't know what to make of it....
I have a lot of mixed feelings, I will say I actually don't feel the apparent anger that most would think should be there and the outrage that the military won't allow this woman to have her symbol on her husbands grave. Not because I don't sympathize, but because I think it only a matter of time before she will be allowed to have it. I actually feel good about this situation, feel even relief because with this situation the Government and even the military will be forced to recognize it's Pagan community.
We have come a long way in the last 60 or so years, we have Wicca to thank for the sudden influx back into Pagan religions, because it was made so public it opened up the oppurtunity for us all to find our Pagan paths even though they may not be Wiccan. However, I don't feel that Wicca should get the crowning glory, it is after all a new religion and a very confused one at that.
See, this is where I feel a bit of dispair, I worry that because Wicca has taken the lime light and other Pagan paths seem to just sit back and let them take the lead, it will become recognized and other Pagan paths will pretty much stay unrecognized. There are many different Pagan symbols and paths, but if Wicca is the only one that pushes forward, then we will all be seen as the same, sadly this is already apparent.
Funnily, Christianity was at one time a pagan religion, in the way that it had a goddess as well as a god, but once it dominated, the goddess was dropped and their once Pagan brothers and sisters from other Pagan paths became persecuted for their beliefs.
This topic certainly gives you a lot to think about, as all the other reports that are coming about. I still say I have my reservations as well as being relieved. Certainly a confusing feeling to have.....
The five-pointed star within a circle that represents the Wiccan religion, a neo-pagan, earth-based belief system, is not on the list.
As a result, the space reserved for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart's memorial plaque at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Nev., remains empty. Stewart, 34, was killed in September 2005 when his Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. He was a follower of the Wiccan tradition, and his wife is fighting to have the fact engraved in stone.
"My husband's faith got him through the war in Desert Storm, through life's problems. It is our spirituality," Roberta Stewart, 36, said. "This is who we are as Americans."
The effort to get the symbol of a tradition that for many conjures up thoughts of devil worship and steaming cauldrons has been going on for nine years, according to leaders in the Wiccan community. In the interim, other emblems have been approved by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Earlier applications by Wiccan groups and families have not been approved because they were incomplete or because of a prior requirement that a centralized organization be listed on the application, according to Josephine Schuda, a V.A. spokeswoman. The Wiccan religion has no centralized body. That requirement has since been eliminated.
Wiccan leaders and their supporters believe they are being stonewalled and denied their religious freedom.
"It is a violation of [Stewart's] First Amendment rights because other religious groups are being given something that she is being denied solely on basis of her religion," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "Every atheist can get a symbol on their markers or headstones; humanists can; Presbyterians can, but not Wiccans."
The faith is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt entity. Wiccans in the military can list their religion on their dog tags and about 1,800 serving active-duty have done that, according 2005 statistics from the Department of Defense.
A final decision has not yet been made on the Stewart application, according to a statement released by the V.A. The decision has been deferred until the agency revises its current policies, which were revised last year. Decisions on applications to add other symbols also have been postponed.
In the interim, V.A. officials have offered Roberta Stewart a temporary marker, which would be changed if the symbol is approved. Stewart has declined.
"To me it's a disgrace to take the plaque without the emblem of my husband's religious beliefs," Stewart said. "We have every right to religious freedom and the expression of it."
At least five families of veterans have sought to have their loved ones memorialized with a Wiccan symbol, said the Rev. Selena Fox, a high priestess and founder of the Circle Sanctuary Wiccan community in Wisconsin. Fox has been working with Roberta Stewart.
The problem, say followers of the tradition, is essentially one of reputation complicated by a history of Salem witch burnings and fear of new religions.
"The standard belief is that [Wiccans] worship Satan, the Christian demigod of evil, that they perform hurtful rituals, injure animals and people," said Franklin Evans, board president of the Delaware Valley Pagan Network. "What they don't understand is that none of these things have ever been true."
The Wiccan tradition is an earth-based religion that focuses on the veneration of a God or Goddess, a reverence for nature and the way in which what occurs in nature affects the lives of followers, said Helen Berger, a professor at West Chester University and the author of Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Wiccans and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Followers are initiated into the tradition and then practice alone or in groups called covens. They have ritual observances for cycles of the moon and follow central tenets, including an admonition to harm no one and that harm done to others will return to the perpetrator three-fold.
Some Wiccans practice witchcraft, or magic, and call themselves witches, Berger said. Some don't. The two can be mutually exclusive.
The number of people identifying themselves as Wiccan in the American Religious Identification Survey jumped from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which conducted the survey. Berger estimates that the national population is more than 250,000 - and growing.
The Delaware Valley Pagan Network believes there are between 5,000 and 10,000 pagans in the area, most of them Wiccans.
Of the many people who explore the tradition, only a few stay, Berger said.
"Some get a spell book, and realize they can't make Joe down the street fall in love with them, and they leave," Berger said. Those who stay, do so for the spirituality, Berger said.
Patrick Stewart came to the tradition through his wife. He wasn't raised in a specific faith, Roberta Stewart said. He was an outdoorsman and devotee of Native American spirituality. When the couple met, they merged their two traditions.
The Stewarts were married in 2003 in the middle of a desert by a high priestess. It was a "a full Celtic, Native American and Wiccan ceremony," Stewart said.
"There was no doubt in my mind that I had been with him in many lifetimes and our souls had been reconnected again," Stewart said.
Patrick Stewart served 11 years of active duty before joining the National Guard in 2001. He served in Desert Storm and Korea. Stewart, who had his Wiccan faith on his dog tags, was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart after he was killed.
His wife is now lobbying government officials. Nevada's Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said he is supporting Stewart, who says that other politicians, including Nevada Republican State Rep. Jim Gibbons, are behind her cause. On July 4, Stewart spoke at a religious freedom rally in Washington, attended by about 300 people.
Her next step will be to hire an attorney.
I know I haven't touched on this topic really, mostly because I don't know what to make of it....
I have a lot of mixed feelings, I will say I actually don't feel the apparent anger that most would think should be there and the outrage that the military won't allow this woman to have her symbol on her husbands grave. Not because I don't sympathize, but because I think it only a matter of time before she will be allowed to have it. I actually feel good about this situation, feel even relief because with this situation the Government and even the military will be forced to recognize it's Pagan community.
We have come a long way in the last 60 or so years, we have Wicca to thank for the sudden influx back into Pagan religions, because it was made so public it opened up the oppurtunity for us all to find our Pagan paths even though they may not be Wiccan. However, I don't feel that Wicca should get the crowning glory, it is after all a new religion and a very confused one at that.
See, this is where I feel a bit of dispair, I worry that because Wicca has taken the lime light and other Pagan paths seem to just sit back and let them take the lead, it will become recognized and other Pagan paths will pretty much stay unrecognized. There are many different Pagan symbols and paths, but if Wicca is the only one that pushes forward, then we will all be seen as the same, sadly this is already apparent.
Funnily, Christianity was at one time a pagan religion, in the way that it had a goddess as well as a god, but once it dominated, the goddess was dropped and their once Pagan brothers and sisters from other Pagan paths became persecuted for their beliefs.
This topic certainly gives you a lot to think about, as all the other reports that are coming about. I still say I have my reservations as well as being relieved. Certainly a confusing feeling to have.....
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