Hensel, 53, of Minneapolis, who served in the Marine Corps from 1971 to 1973, was among about 150 pagans and Wiccans who rallied Saturday to urge the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to add the Wiccan pentacle to the list of 38 religious symbols approved for use on military-cemetery gravestones and other markers. Participants -- women and men, old and young -- came from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
"We have served our country, too, and everyone should have the right to have their religious symbol on their gravestone," said Hensel, who follows the Wiccan faith, a set of traditions that is in turn part of the diverse and eclectic Earth-based spiritual tradition called paganism. "This is my church, and I love it."
The armed services do recognize the Wiccan religion and permit its listing on soldiers' dog tags, participants pointed out.
Hensel and fellow veterans Don Ament, Jim Mosser and Corinne Ravenwald were prominent in a ritual that ended with formation of a human pentacle.
The pentacle, a five-sided star set in a circle, is "as important to us as the cross is to Christians and the Star of David to Jews," Mosser said. It symbolizes the integration of body and spirit and the five elements -- earth, air, fire, water and spirit -- and must be pictured with one point up, two down, participants said.
An upside-down pentacle is sometimes associated with Satan-worshipers, a group that Wiccans and pagans want no part of, several Wiccans said.
In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey identified 274,000 Americans who call themselves Wiccan or pagan. Minnesota has several thousand, observers say.
Courtney Morton, 28, of South St. Paul, came with friends from the Circle of Phoenix, which she described as a Twin Cities "Wiccan teaching circle." Morton said "it's only fair" that the pentacle should be on the department's list. "It's a matter of religious freedom," she said.
The nationwide effort to have the pentacle approved began a decade ago, said Penny Tupy, spokeswoman for the Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance. Most recently, Wiccan widows of veterans sued the agency to force it to address applications for approval of the pentacle. A U.S. District Court judge in Madison, Wis., recently denied the agency's request for a delay and set a trial date for June.
The issue gained national prominence when Sgt. Patrick Stewart, a Wiccan from Nevada, died in combat in Afghanistan in September 2005.
Jill Medicine Heart Combs told the crowd that her Wiccan husband, Gerwin Dee Combs, who served in the Army from 1979 to 1986, lies gravely ill in an irreversible coma in an Ohio hospital. Combs wept as she spoke, saying that her husband would want an emblem of his faith on his gravestone. "We must speak out against religious prejudice," she said. "I know Gary would want me to be here."
No comments:
Post a Comment