AP: War Widow Dedicates Wiccan Plaque Symbol

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20061202/457259d0_3ca6_1552620061203-592045523

War Widow Dedicates Wiccan Plaque Symbol
By MARTIN GRIFFITH (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
December 03, 2006 2:10 AM EST
RENO, Nev. - The widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan saw a Wiccan symbol placed on a memorial plaque for her husband Saturday, after fighting the federal government for more than a year over the emblem.

Roberta Stewart, widow of Sgt. Patrick Stewart, and Wiccan leaders said it was the first government-issued memorial plaque with a Wiccan pentacle - a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle. More than 50 friends and family dedicated the plaque at Northern Nevada Veterans Cemetery, about 30 miles east of Reno.

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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes more than 30 symbols, including more than a dozen variations of the Christian cross and the atomic whirl used by atheists, but not the pentacle.

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Last month, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the VA on behalf of Stewart and others for its refusal to include the Wiccan emblem. "Our people are on the front line in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's not right they're not getting equal treatment," said the Rev. Selena Fox, one of the Wiccan organizers of the event.

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give your life to this country and your loved ones have to fight the government that send you to war and in this case based on lies to give you the memorial you want.

on your headstone if that's what you want and if you gave your life defending your country.

you mean there ARE atheists who fight in wars and die in them ??? :sarcasm:

"'There are no atheists in foxholes' is not an argument against atheism; it's an argument against foxholes." - James Morrow

:toast:

I'm an atheist and I don't even know what the hell that is. :wtf: I guess I didn't get the memo from my non-church.

Gee, now I don't feel like a true atheist because I don't prescribe to the "atomic whirl" as the symbol representing my non-belief. :eyes:

Don't you just love the way they pigeonhole everyone?

I think it looks like something off the chest of a cheesy 1950s superhero.

A Harlan Ellison classic, iirc.

I want my tombstone to have a probability cloud airbrushed onto it:

:-)

abandoned by my fellow non-believers. :) If you can't believe in anything, what's their left to believe in? I'm shattered......to think that I didn't believe in these guys! :cry: