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Tuesday, 13 June 2006 20:00 |
 | Mark West
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Sometimes, in this great country of ours, you just don??t know whether to laugh or to cry.
The latest flap in the war in Iraq concerns whether a soldier whose religion was Wicca can have the religion??s symbol ?? a five-pointed star ?? engraved on his headstone.
No,
I??m not making this up. Evidently, the Department of Defense makes
available the symbols of many religions on headstones, but not the
five-pointed star. We might be charitable, and ascribe this to there
being relatively few Wiccans in the military. But I can??t avoid the
nagging suspicion that the reason lies in something less appealing ?? a
prejudice against the religion.
Now, I must confess that I don??t understand the reasons for such
prejudice. Presumably some people assume that Wiccans are
anti-Christian. I don??t think that??s true; I have a friend who is
Wiccan who is certain that the devotions made in my church to the
Virgin Mary are descended from rituals to the goddess Isis and she
argues that she could participate in most of the Marian rituals in an
old-line Catholic church without any trouble. She may be joking with
me, but her point is a good one; most religions have far more in common
that some of their adherents would like to think.
In any event, I can hold my religious faith, and believe it to be true,
without necessarily thinking that yours is untrue. Even if I think you
are incorrect in your beliefs, it need not follow that I think that
you??re a bad person, or deliberately misguided, or influenced by evil
spirits. And even if I do think that people of other faiths are
misguided or evil, both good manners and the pluralistic nature of our
society suggests I should keep such thoughts to myself.
That principle of good sense and good manners has never occurred to the
Bush administration, which has now endorsed a Constitutional amendment
defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Like the quail that
runs away from its nest, dragging a wing, in hopes of luring a predator
away from helpless young, this suggests a desperate attempt to distract
the public from the emerging quagmire of an Iraqi stalemate and surging
oil prices.
And like the current squabble about immigration, which Bush pressed
onto the public agenda when his popularity ratings careened below 30
percent, it will likely work.
Of course, the amendment hasn??t much of a chance of passing, and is the
sort of thing that should be left to states. Conservative states could
forbid same-sex marriage, liberal state could permit it, and that would
be that. But a reasonable solution to almost any issue is never what
Bush wants, after all; like all crackpots, he believes God is on his
side and neither the voice of the majority of the public nor the voice
of reason need interfere.
The old saw has it that there are no atheists in foxholes. But, of
course, there are; just as there are followers of Islam, of Wicca and
of any number of religions. And if they are good enough to fight for
our nation and to die in its defense, then surely they are good enough
to have their religious practices and preferences respected and honored
by the Department of Defense.
In this sense, of course, war is the great leveler. African-Americans,
during the Second World War, showed themselves to be valiant soldiers
who were as brave and as loyal as anyone else. When they returned
stateside after the war, it was increasingly unlikely that they would
accept treatment as second-class citizens.
And the United States can??t afford, in a modern war, to prohibit anyone
from serving who is willing. Modern war was described by Randall
Jarrell as a great iron engine devouring the young of a nation; to feed
that iron engine, nations soon learn that they can??t be particular
about race, creed or color.
The neoconservatives who got us into the mess in Iraq seem convinced
that only heterosexual Christians matter. But the demands of the war
are making it increasingly evident that the military can??t be choosy.
And, if previous wars are any indication, the veterans of this war ??
gays, Wiccans and others ?? who don??t fit the Christian heterosexual
pattern so beloved by those who sent them into harm??s way may very well
return to demand the rights that their leaders seek to deny them.
?ÿ
Mark West is a professor of mass communications at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
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