Group sues VA over Wiccan burial markers

AirForceTimes.com - Nov 9 2006

A group dedicated to “defending the separation of church and state” is weighing in legally on the battle by some families to have the Wiccan symbol placed on burial markers provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs for their fallen veterans.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State plans to announce a lawsuit against the VA on Monday in Washington, D.C., said Rob Boston, a group spokesman.

“We seek equal treatment among religions by the government,” he said. “We think the federal government is clearly discriminating against Wicca by refusing to recognize its symbols … Why the federal government continues to fight this is beyond me.”

With AU executive director Rev. Barry Lynn will be Roberta Stewart of Nevada, whose husband, Army National Guard Sgt. Patrick Stewart, 34, was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, when his helicopter was shot down. Stewart was a Wiccan.

In September, Stewart won permission from the state of Nevada to have the Wiccan pentacle — an encircled five-sided star — put on the memorial plaque to her husband at the state veterans cemetery.

Others have also tried, in vain, to get the VA to recognize the pentacle as a religious symbol. The VA has been studying the matter for several years.

Tech. Sgt. Loye Pourner, a retired KC-10 hydraulics technician, told Air Force Times in an earlier interview that Wiccans and other pagans don’t want special treatment. “We want to be treated equally,” he said.

According to the VA’s National Cemetery Administration, there is no deliberate effort to keep the pentacle off VA headstones, but emblems approved for use must meet criteria that so far Wiccans have not met.

An application for an authorized symbol or emblem must be submitted to the administration by an organization, the VA has argued, while Wiccans have neither one unified symbol nor one national spokesman.

Rev. Selena Fox, senior priestess at the Wisconsin-based Circle Sanctuary and a plaintiff in the planned litigation, as well as Richard Katskee, AU’s assistant legal director and the lead attorney in the case, will also be at the announcement Monday.