A Pentacular Lawsuit

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This keeps popping up on all of my law geek news sources, and I think it's an interesting case. Wiccan widows are suing to force the federal government to allow the Wiccan pentacle, a five-pointed star with a circle around it, to be placed on headstones in national cemetaries. This is not to be confused with the Satanic pentagram, the upside-down five-pointed star with a circle around it (and sometimes the face of Baphomet superimposed on the star) which showed up with an alarming frequency and an even more alarming lack of context in a number of hair band music videos in the 1980s.

The government allows all kinds of other religious symbols on national cemetary headstones. And yet, this isn't a case of the gubment refusing to recognize the legitimacy of Wicca as a religion. In fact, as the AP reports:

The Army allows Wiccan soldiers to list their faith on dog tags, Wiccan organizations are allowed to hold services on military installations and the Army Chaplains Handbook includes an explanation of the religion, attorneys said.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

I'll also point out that I was going to use a pun on the word "Wicca" as the title of this post and call it something like "A Wicc-ed Lawsuit," but some cursory research revealed that the word "wicked" actually comes from the word "Wicca," and therefore it wouldn't be a pun at all. You hear that Chemerinsky? "Seminal" comes from "semen," so referring to Griswold v. Connecticut as a "seminal case" isn't actually a joke.

That's all.

1 Comment

Even if it was a Satanic pentagram, it should still be allowed on a headstone. Satanic worship is every bit as valid as any other religion.

Or it would be, if the first amendment actually meant anything anymore.

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This page contains a single entry by hb published on November 14, 2006 9:20 AM.

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