Washington, D.C.
The Department of Veterans Affairs this week agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to the list of religious symbols it will inscribe on veterans’ headstones. The agreement ends a lawsuit brought by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy group, on behalf of the families of several Wiccan worshippers. Wicca is a faith originating in pre-Christian Europe that reveres nature and its cycles. About 1,800 Wicca worshippers serve in the military, the Pentagon says. A total of 38 religious symbols are now approved for use on headstones in military cemeteries.
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