Wiccan Veterans Denied Grave Symbols

If this is true, it needs to change. In pertinent part,

[Wicca] is recognised by the US military as an official religion but military veterans are not allowed to display the symbol on their graves.

"The federal government's discriminatory delay in approving these applications must end," said Daniel Mach, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There is no good reason to deny grieving families the solace and comfort available to military families of other religions," he said.

It would be a mistake on my part to immediately blame the Christian influence in the States as the sole cause for this "delay", though I did, at first. Wicca is a misunderstood religion, one which is portrayed in popular culture as almost wholly different from its existence in actual practice, and those popular representations are, in my experience, almost always negative (sort of like some other faiths I could mention). But it's true that Evangelical and conservative Christianity have a lot of sway in this country, and a lot of representation in the government. Anyway, Christians are probably the group I identify most with, and understand the best, out of all those represented in the US government today.

So, as a Christian, I want to go on record as being utterly opposed to preventing members of the Wiccan religion from displaying their symbol on their military grave stones, as represented in the above news piece. I'll be writing more broadly on this later, but as Christians, we're called first and foremost to love God and our neighbors (which Jesus clarified to mean, by paraphrase, "anybody we run across"*). If God is as great as we believe He is, we have to stop putting down people who believe differently from us, and let them make up their own minds based on the evidence. By putting up roadblocks of intolerance and injustice, we are not only opposing God ourselves, but preventing others from seeing that He might even be worth casually investigating. Christianity is about loving God, as simple as that, and nobody in the history of this world has ever been pressured into loving anybody, nor will they ever.

Just put yourself in their shoes for a second. Imagine if the majority culture and religion in the country you live in were different from, and opposed to, your own. Would you feel loved if it attempted to legislate that you receive unequal treatment?

And to Wiccans, I want to take this opportunity as a member of the worldwide Christian community to apologize, not just in this case as some of us may be involved, but for all of the injustice you have received at the hands of people who associate themselves with the name of Jesus. I recognize that I'm only one person, and that the discrimination and harassment you have received may far outweigh any impact my words might have. But as a Christian, I am truly sorry for the way Wiccans have been treated by some Christians, and even if it's only one apology by one of us, at least it's one. I have this forum, and I would be remiss if I didn't use it for this. I know others -- many others, in fact -- who feel the same way. I am truly sorry.



* Actually, I think He told the lawyer that he was asking the wrong question, and directed him toward action rather than looking for shortcuts. But the point still stands.