Soldier Sues Military for Religious Discrimination

I’m a Wiccan in the military. All of my co-workers and supervisors are all aware of this, and are very supportive. My only complaint is that we don’t have a Wiccan Chaplain (yet).

We in this family have all been in the service except my daughter. I was not pagan till after I got out, but often observed that those who went to church on Sunday on training bases (Basic or AIT) were given the day off; those who had no church to attend–atheists or pagans were given duties to do —cleaning barracks and the like. Also, my son noted that many briefings on spotting terrorists showed pictures of things like Nordic runes, and the briefers would characterize EVERYthing of this sort as relating to white separatists. Tig stood up and raised hell (or would that be Hel?), insisted they remove that from the briefing as it is not true that ALL people using or displaying runes are racist. He does follow a Nordic path himself. I have sent packages to aircraft carriers with ritual items for use of 200 some pagans on board…who were generally denied any special space for their rites. Likewise, I sent goods to Iraq, where pagan groups say they cannot get any of the normal accouterments for pagan and Wiccan ritual. So it is a problem in many circumstances.

A lot depends upon your unit. Few units are supportive, and even if it is you will run into people who are not. I was stationed at Fort Hood. Other Soldiers got time off to go to relgious services. When I wanted time off to go to Circle (we were in the field) my NCOs thought I was joking. I got flack about having my altar in my room b/c it made my roommate uncomfortable. You are not told of a wiccan/pagan groups if you speak to the chaplain. I already knew about the group, had been to the group, had seen chaplains, and even THIS chaplain at the camp for circle, when to him and asked if he knew of pagan groups in the area, and he flat out said No. Even kinda hinted that I knew he knew and hinted locales, and he said he didn’t know of anything of the kind. I finally told him I knew of the Circle and that he had been out there and he said he thought the group had shut down. The HP and HPS had to send reports to the chaplaincy and there was too much paperwork for him to think it shut down. Yes, it exists, but it largely depends on where you are and who you work for.

I was in the Navy for 5 years, No one minded, no one cared. My plantoon commander knew, my chain of command knew, it never kept me from anything. In bootcamp they let us have a small meditation ritual. The chaplins were having a small tantrim but none the less we got to do a small ritual.
My Last name was Blair so when the movie came out, that was the only time I ever got teased about it LOL

I was the leader of the group that Labrys sent her package too, and we were all extremely grateful.

I dealt with a lot of harrassment from those in my work center as I was working to become the lay leader of our Pagan/Wiccan study group on our deployment this year. They were pasting crosses (made of any material laying around) to my drawer in the shop, saying derogatory things about my religious beliefs, etc. On top of that, the chapel onboard wasn’t very helpful to our group at first, until one of our members sent up a chit to the ship’s CMC, did we actually start to see some equality.

I was in the military and treated fairly. Of course, the subject of my faith never came up, so I suppose you can’t really use this as a basis of comparison.

I have just spent a year in Iraq as a memeber of Vicotry Base Open Circle. Probably one of the largest open circles in Iraq. I noticed both sides of the fence I saw people who were able to facilitate my needs religiously and I saw people who though they took an oath to uphold and defend the constitution were oppressive and you will always have bothsides like that… Some people are so full of self rightiousness that they can only believe that their way is the only way… I however was lead by people who allowed me to express my religious beliefs every week and every holiday. My Only beef would be that Since we are run by the chaplins corps all of our Pagan rituals had to be done on a sunday, so if the full moon say fell on wednesday, we could not hold a full moon ritual until the following sunday… and we were only allowed one ritual per month, which I can’t really complain about… We were in combat and mission does come first… That was my experience… We even had a web portal page available to us on the victory base complex intranet. The Chaplins that over saw our weekly discussion group and rituals were for the most part very gracious and were actually very curious to learn about the different paths under the Pagan umbrella. Except for one or two incedents I had a most wonderous experiance about being open about my religious beliefs. What I generally hear though my expeiance is still not the norm. Though I think that it is improving and as long as we can keep from getting angry, and try and educate our non-pagan brothers and sisters in the military I think that we will give them a better understanding of our spirituality.

I anyone here wants to really do something to help in this case, or in cases like it, here is the website to go to:

http://militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

I heard this guy in an Air America Radio interview and he is tough. He takes the fight of religious discrmination in the military very seriously. He also fights the religious right’s influence in our military. I plan on donating to help fund his work soon.

These religious fanatics have access to our nuclear weapons arsenal. Now that’s scary!

I was active duty and also in the National guard (now retired). During my tour in Iraq our Bn Chaplain (Southern Baptist) Would not allow the Wiccans and Pagans to hold services (Which we did anyways) due to the fact that we didn’t have a DFGL or Lay-Chaplain. I tried to explain to him that “ALL” Wiccans are their own priest/priestess. But he didn’t want to hear it. We did a monthley “Protection” casting over the Bn area. After we had to stop (he was threatening to file UCMJ (legal-disciplinary)actions against us) we were hit with a rocket attack (within 2 weeks). The Bn Commander (also Southern Baptist) told him to back off. He didn’t know whether it was coincidence or not, but he didn’t want to take any chances with his soldiers well being and to let us do our “thing” and practice our faiths as long as we didn’t violate any military decency regulations.

I’m a vet and I think it just depends on your supervision. I have been Christian and Pagan while in and faced discrimination for both belief systems, so, while it does exist – we’re not the only ones who get discriminated against.

I was a Pagan in the Army and the National Guard. I recently just ETS’d. I’ve had a few instances of discrimination. One of my coworkers saw my pentagram when it slipped from under my shirt during exercise. The expression on his face said it all. He looked as if every monster ever imagined had just manifested themselves right before him. He immediately left the area and I didn’t see him for hours. When I tracked him down, I asked him if he actually KNEW what the symbol represented. He said , ‘yah, we don’t have a problem.’ But he never talked to me again unless absolutely forced to. In another instance, my supervisor who happened to be an ordained Baptist minister, saw my pentagram. I also had my desk decorated for Mabon. He just took it all in, and we never had a problem. He was content to acknowledge my religious freedom.

So, I’ve had it both ways. But I’ve also heard the stories other Pagans have when their commands are not tolerant. It’s really sad. At least we can finally put our religious symbol on our headstones.

Lance

Well, when Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gets before Congress and says he refuses to accept any conduct “that in my upbringing is not right” it makes me worry a lot for Pagan soldiers. Why are his own personal beliefs more important than the Constitution, and why is he one of the highest-ranking officials of the land? I think the answer is obvious.

General Pace was speaking about gays (his opinion is that gay soldiers are OK, but gay sex is not, because it is “immoral”) but I doubt he would look any more favorably on paganism. That kind of rigid fundamentalist outlook is rarely reserved for just one aspect of life.

I’m sure the situation in real life is, as with many things, different depending on the commanders and the commands. That’s also disturbing, as the way the religious freedom is applied should be uniform (pun intended).

What good is it to have our soldiers dying to protect our way of life and then deprive them of the freedoms they’re dying for?

I guess the military is like anywhere else. It’s the worlds problem, not the just the military. The military is just a product of it’s upbringing. You have those select few that are supportive(and hard to find), and the rest that are down right mean. I have been a Pagan for 18 years and in that time I have been persecuted by countless people when compared to christians. I train Martial Arts, but Sensei has made it blatently obvious that he will not approve of anyone other than christians being students in his dojo. I have to very careful in the lockeroom because I have a huge Pentacle tattoed on my back… I have to make sure to change in the corner with my back to the wall….for almost 2 years. But the more we come out and stand together for all Pagan causes the more those proud christians will have to acknowledge we are not going to hide anymore. I’ll be glad the day I can walk freely without worrying about people judging me for my beliefs rather than the work I do.

I am a Military Brat. My father put in twenty years in the Air Force. During that time, it was frowned upon to be anything put Christian. Being Pagan, and not being allowed to practice or even voice an opinion was harsh. And for some reason, My father was denied promotion three times, when his test was well above the failing line. We suspect it was because of religious background.

I was told later that the clergy on the base had to be familiar with all forms of religion. What makes the Christian faith anymore special. We all get to the same place, we just take a different road. I hope that children of today a raised to be tolerant of other beliefs and not to shun those that don’t believe like they do!

How can you enlist in the service knowing you are trained to kill others when the wiccan creed is “Harm none”. I really would like to understand. leni

Leni – every Xian knows what the 1st Commandment is, and it doesn’t stop them, so why should Pagans be different?

Leni, read Wiccan Warrior by Kerr Cuhulain. He adresses the “harm none” issue in relation to police work. His answer would apply to military pagans as well.

Joe – I know how beneficial and wonderful martial arts can be, as well as being a complement to Pagan beliefs. However, the fact that you are not accepted in your dojo obviously distresses you. And furthermore, any sensei who would deny others the right to be who they are is clearly denying the open-minded principles of martial arts and eastern thought in general. So I guess my question is: why don’t you just change dojos?

I am currently in the military and i rmr in BT it was actually hard for me to practice bc i was the only wiccan in my company and in order to do anything i had to have a battle buddy with me… well the main problem with that was that no one was comfortable standing behind while i tried to draw a circle However, in AIT (when i found other wiccans/pagans) there was no real issue, although we had to explain to the drill sgt’s what it was that we were going to be doing during our meetins. i think a partial problem to this situation is that superiors have no idea what wiccans and pagans do when they go to Circle or try to offer sacrifice… i think it’s just as important for us to communicate what we want to do as it is for our command to allow us to do it.

Pagans should be different re: killing because most of us had to seek out the spiritual implications of paganism and therefore obtained knowledge first hand out of a desire to become more then we were taught by standard religion. To kill and maim innocent people can never be right no matter what religious beliefs one has. And to honor Bush by believing his b.s. is shameful and ignorant.

I take back the word shame as that might harm someone who reads this. But, is the military anyway to honor the earth?

I have been religiously discriminated in my 10 years in the military and that why I got out. I am Jewish and was forced to go to Chirstmas parties.
But the worst was when I asked for one day of leave for chanuka and the 1sg denied my request, right then I knew I had to get out of an oragnization that cant respect my religous rights, but expects me to die for there christians causes, dont think so, did 10 years and got out.

I’m a Wiccan who server in Desert Storm and is likely to get deployed to Iraq before the year is out. 17 years ago religious discrimination was very common, forcing me to learn the regulations to defend myself. Today my entire company knows what I am, and only ONE soldier has a problem with me, and he is well known for his unprofessionalism.

I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE IM IN THE ARMY AND I HAD A SEGENT MAJIOR TELL THAT BEING RASTAFARI MAKES ME A JUNKIE BUT KNOW ONE CARES A BOUT THE LITTLE PEOPLE

I am Wiccan, but the Army does seem to be discriminating against me. I am trying to re-enlist and I am being giving the run around. I was told I needed a psych evel, and I got it, now I am being told that I need an psychoanalytic evel, “because of my religion”. If that is not discrimination, then i dont know what is!!

I am active duty in the Air Force and a Pagan. I am very open about my religion even with being stationed in the bible belt. While I have not personally been discriminated against, I have known people who were. It seems to me that most of the discrimination happens in the Army. We had a Pagan group at our deployed location while I was there and had no problems. The other religious services and the chaplains were very accommodating when we were looking for a place to hold our meetings. However one of the supervisors of one of the soldiers in the group had a problem, but that was the only case I personally know about.

Forgot to comment on the lack of Wiccan/Pagan chaplain. This is due to requirements to become a chaplain. The Wiccan/Pagan community does not have a governing body like the Christian church to give the approval required to become a chaplain. The Air Force chaplains do, however, learn about Wicca and Paganism in their training.