Another Disservice to Our Veterans
Nov. 22nd, 2006 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseAs you have probably read elsewhere, the veterans administration has voted not to allow Wiccans to display the pentacle on military graves. See: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-14-wiccan-soldier_x.htm
I find this completely abhorrent.
Anyone who gave their life for this country should be allowed to display whatever symbol of their faith on their gravestone, especially given that the Pilgrims -- whose turkey many of us are planning to eat tomorrow – fled England due to religious persecution. Last time I read our constitution religious freedom was still listed there, (though given what the Bush Administration has done to the bill of rights, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.)
This should be a non-issue. When Ella, our daughter, died, it was intensely important to Shawn and I that her memory be honored in a way that respected our belief system. We were sensitive to the fact that even Shawn’s very Christian step-mother needed comfort, but we told our Unitarian minister that mentioning God or heaven was strictly verboten because we just simply didn’t believe in those particular words (though we happily allowed an unnamed concept of a higher power) and it would have tarnished our experience, our memory to have to “put up with” images and symbols that were meaningless (and even offensive) to us.
Ella never lived as a Witch. These men and women who are dying far from home did.
Their families should be allowed to go to their gravesides and see a symbol that gives them comfort in their time of loss. Because grief isn’t for the government’s sense of propriety; it’s for the comfort of the families who are left behind.
I find this completely abhorrent.
Anyone who gave their life for this country should be allowed to display whatever symbol of their faith on their gravestone, especially given that the Pilgrims -- whose turkey many of us are planning to eat tomorrow – fled England due to religious persecution. Last time I read our constitution religious freedom was still listed there, (though given what the Bush Administration has done to the bill of rights, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.)
This should be a non-issue. When Ella, our daughter, died, it was intensely important to Shawn and I that her memory be honored in a way that respected our belief system. We were sensitive to the fact that even Shawn’s very Christian step-mother needed comfort, but we told our Unitarian minister that mentioning God or heaven was strictly verboten because we just simply didn’t believe in those particular words (though we happily allowed an unnamed concept of a higher power) and it would have tarnished our experience, our memory to have to “put up with” images and symbols that were meaningless (and even offensive) to us.
Ella never lived as a Witch. These men and women who are dying far from home did.
Their families should be allowed to go to their gravesides and see a symbol that gives them comfort in their time of loss. Because grief isn’t for the government’s sense of propriety; it’s for the comfort of the families who are left behind.
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Date: 2006-11-22 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 05:41 pm (UTC)http://www.circlesanctuary.org/liberty/veteranpentacle/20Nov06Update.htm
jpj