Wiccan Veteran's Widow Asks Americans United For Help

Roberta Stewart, whose husband was killed when the military helicopter he was in was shot down over Afghanistan, has now asked Americans United For Separation of Church and State to assist her in her long struggle to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve placing a Wiccan symbol on her husband's grave marker in a veteran's cemetery. The Reno(NV) Gazette-Journal today reports that AU assistant legal director Richard Katskee says this is a situation in which the government, which has approved emblems for 38 other religions, is playing favorites. AU will first try to resolve the issue by negotiations, but will file suit if that does not work. Veterans Administration spokesman Matthew Burns said that his department has merely "deferred a decision on this application until [it] completes its efforts to develop a uniform set of rules by which all applications can be considered." (See prior posting.)