America decides what religious symbols its soldiers are buried under, not a witches' coven.

I'm sure that I'm rehashing from previous discussions, but I haven't found an answer for either of these questions in earlier threads

Does anyone know if the Atheist atom has ever been picked? It seems ridiculous.

Moreover, is there a secular choice? It seems that if you want to be buried in the Veterans' Cemetery, your memorial has to either be religious or hard-line atheist.

I think that you'll find that the problem isn't so much anyone at the top of the system worrying about "weird" symbols as someone at the bottom/middle of the pile being a lifelong bureaucrat.

There's probably some committee somewhere that's still talking about this, and until that group of folks turn in their 500 page report, you're not going to see any action either way by the people in charge.

People have only been talking about the Wiccan symbol issue for a couple of years now. In bureaucratic time, that's practically nanoseconds...

I read a while ago that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was trying to get their own symbol (a willing soldier had applied for it) but was turned down.

One easy way to swat down made up "religions" is to look at whether the soldier honestly believes that it is a religion.

I hope cirby is right, and that this is just an example of slow Pentagon bureaucracy. But given that we have people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the delay is inexcusable.

Maybe Rumsfeld should issue one final "snowflake" to the bureaucracy to get this fixed. It's the least he owes someone who dies under his command.

I think it'd be interesting to see some sort of analysis of the different burial customs of the "approved" religions and how they feel about burial in a secular military cemetary. I've never really thought about it before, but aren't Christian cemetaries usually sanctified in some way? Is that merely because it's Church property (or am I just remembering something from The Highlander that has no basis in actual doctrine?) How would a Muslim (at least accoring to "accepted" doctrine) feel about being buried in the same cemetary as a Christian?

Not that these questions have any real bearing on whether a certain symbol should be allowed... I'm just curious. Has anyone thought about the religious implications of military cemetaries before?

Does ReaderY still wonder what the big deal is, I wonder?

One easy way to swat down made up "religions" is to look at whether the soldier honestly believes that it is a religion.

Actually, under the 1st Amendment, I suspect that's the first thing on the list of "don't do's".

We had an attorney at Interior who had a great sense of humor, and after they announced you could take "comp time" for religious holidays not overlapping with federal holidays, put in an application to worship the god Salmonensis, The Great Trout, who can only be appeased by a ritual meal of a trout, caught on openning day of trout season.

They ignored him. It was the only way to deal with it. They couldn't legally quiz him on whether he believed Salmonensis was a deity, or honestly intended to worship him. Or her.

Oh look, a Nazi analogy. How helpful.

"Oh look, a Nazi analogy. How helpful."

Oh look, a total refusal to answer the question. Yeah, that's really helpful.

Nate, what if the individual viewed his "religion" as Marxist-Leninism and wanted to be buried under the hammer and sickle? That you choose to ignore the question of whether we would have to honor the symbols of America's enemies shows that you know the answer.

Amen Ken &UHC are right. What if a soldier wanted a swastika or a hammer &sickle or even a bust of Osama bin Laden? This isn't a Godwin-improper "Nazi analogy" so much as a hard case that the libertarians have to deal with.

Those who have claimed that a soldier can get whatever he wants on his tombstone (no pizza jokes please ;-) had better say either "I'm ok with American soldiers being buried under swastikas" or "I was wrong, my previous argument was too broad, I think there should be some limits."

Argument by counterexample and reductio ad absurdum are valid ways to argue logically, and both of them lend themselves to points about Nazis and Communists in public policy debates. And, if you're a serious logician, there's not a thing wrong with that. Anyone who puts forward an argument should be prepared to deal with all of its consequences.

So, those of you who think Wiccan symbols should be on markers in military cemeteries, please answer these questions:
1) Should any soldier be able to put any symbol he wants on his marker?
2) Would you limit soldiers to religious symbols? If so, why?
3) Should the symbols be only the "official" symbols of the religion or could the soldier pick any religious symbol?
4) The swastika is a religious symbol, as are a variety of KKK symbols. Should soldiers be allowed to choose those symbols? If not, why not?
5) Do you think a soldier could be legally excluded from military service if he was a neo-Nazi who advocated the peaceful election of Nazis to office and the peaceful adoption of Nazi policies (i.e. extermination of Jews, etc.)?
6) Same question as #5 for KKK members?
7) If a soldier can be legally excluded from the military for holding radical views, why should a soldier not be prevented from displaying radical symbology in American military cemeteries?
8) Presumably soldiers can find out when signing up for the military whether they can be buried under the symbol of their choice. Isn't it then just a question of, essentially, contract rights? Nobody forces anyone to be a soldier anymore.

The reason why Nazi analogies are unhelpful is because, well, Wiccans are not Nazis nor are they enemies of the state.

There seem to be three principled stances on government and religion. One is to abolish all public recognition of religion and have enforced secularism in the public arena. A second is religious pluralism, where government recognizes all religions unless there is a compelling state interest to do otherwise. Finally, you can argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and so Christianity is the top dog on the hierarchy of religions.

I find the first and last options unacceptable. The burden of proof should be on those arguing against a Wiccan symbol on military graves -- you won't get out of this burden just by arguing that if we recognize Wiccans we have to recognize Nazis. It is not at all relevant to the current example.

Unless there is something I missed, Wiccans are allowed to serve openly in the military which suggests that the Pentagon does not see them as threats to civilization. Skinheads on the other hand will find no place in today's racially integrated military. Mind you, I'm sure they exist but I think they have to keep pretty secretive about their beliefs.

Incidentally, while the swastika is a symbol used by many Hindus the VA seems to have avoided that mess by using the word "Om" written in Sanskrit instead. Clever indeed.

What if a soldier wanted a swastika or a hammer &sickle or even a bust of Osama bin Laden?

Thank you! We should bar fallen wiccan soldiers from having their religious symbol on their tombstone because of the millions of people slaughtered by wiccans over the last century. And let no one forget all the recent wicca-inspired terrorism.

The First Amendment doesn't prohibit courts from making sure individuals are claiming their religious belief in good faith; in fact, the First Amendment requires it. Courts do it all the time in Free Exercise cases where there's reason to believe the person is lying.

DaveHardy: Erasmus is right as a legal matter -- courts aren't supposed to consider whether a person's religious belief system is widely shared, internally consistent, reasonable, or scripturally supported, but they are entitled to (and often required to) consider whether the person sincerely believes what he says he believes.

In practice, I suspect that often proves quite difficult. Our usual decisions about what someone sincerely believes turn in large part on what is reasonable for that person to believe, and what many other people believe; these matters are conceptually different, but often hard to disentangle in practice.

My guess is that therefore judges often err on the side of finding sincerity, and sometimes do consider the seeming reasonableness of the belief and the degree to which it's shared but do so in ways that are hard to review. Fortunately, though, in those instances where there's little secular benefit to be gained from lying (for instance, in choosing a grave marker, but not in claiming a conscientious objector exemption from the draft), sincerity will rarely be in serious dispute.

What if a soldier wanted a swastika or a hammer &sickle or even a bust of Osama bin Laden?

If he fought and died for this country, he can have any damn thing he wants on his headstone.

Prof. Volokh is right, last I looked at the Free Exercise cases. While the government can look into whether the soldier considered himself a Wiccan, in determining what the soldier's religious preferences are, that is about it. Otherwise, it would present Free Exercise and Etablishment clause problems.

I have wondered how the Bush Administration would respond to a Wiccan-based charity's request for federal funds through the "faith-based initiative" program, given that many fundamentalists consider Wiccans to be satanic, and Bush apparently appointed such persons to rund this office. I think they would be uncomfortable granting such a request, regardless of the merits of the underlying program.

These small religious groups often create interesting legal issues under the Constitution. I once represented a group of parents who intervened on the side of a school district that was accused, by other parents, of promoting the religions of Wicca and Neo-Paganism in violation of the Establishment Clause, by its use of a certain reading textbook series that had pictures, stories and poems with witches, other magical figures (goblins, elves, etc) depicted in some of its selections (e.g., "Country Witch, City Witch" was one poem, a take off of the Country Mouse, City Mouse poem). The case was easy to predict who would lose (the plaintiffs) but was harder to explain why because of the confused nature of Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but it's telling that no one has been able to explain why a Wiccan soldier should be denied a Wiccan symbol on her tombstone. Is the argument so weak that people are embarrassed to try to write it?

Someone started a slippery slope argument, but they never explained how a Wiccan symbol would lead to Nazi symbols (or how banning a Wiccan symbol would not result in banning the Jewish start). So that doesn't count.

Public_Defender: I favor allowing Wiccans and pretty much any one else to use whatever symbol they want on their tombstone, but I can think of two potentially less disgusting arguments for opposing it. One, not wanting to allow all kinds of symbols of tiny, marginal sects. That, I think, is pretty weak if that's all there is in a certain case. The second reason, as has been hinted but not outright stated by some commenters, is that a lot of people don't believe that any Wiccan has a sincere belief in their theology, but rather is just trying to be a tweak-the-fundies in-your-face iconoclast. (This could apply just a well to atheists as to religious conservatives.) That may be true of some Wiccans (in fact, some members of any religion can probably be said to have such motivation), but I'm quite sure that it's not true of all of them.