More April Wierdness and a First Amendment Victory

Well, dears.....THIS weekend the Hardest Working Hot Water Heater in show business shuffled off its mortal coil and dumped about 50 gallons of water into YT's garage.
Darling Spouse broke this news to YT by gently shaking our shoulder while we slept to anounce that we would NOT need to be spending the morning doing laundry. Man should go to work for a PR agency.

(sigh)

However, the NEW Hardest Working Hot Water Hearter (NHWHW) has been successfully installed and All Has Been Cleansed, including the 4,298,438 loads of laundry.

And in other news, the Veterans' Administration, apparently having finally UNDERSTOOD the words used in the First Amendment, settled its lawsuit with the families of Wiccan soldiers and has decided that, you know what? Witches are People Too and when they DIE in the SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY, *their* faith should also comfort them and their families in that death.

Henceforth, the graves of witches who die in the service of their country will bear the pentacle, as the graves of Christian soldiers bear the cross, Jewish soldiers the Star of David, Moslem soldiers the star and sickle, etc. The settlement further gives the VA 14 days to comply with all outstanding requests and get those pentacles on the headstones of the pagan patriots who fought for a country that until NOW, didn't think their religion was worthy of the same respect given others. And, by the way, that list of OTHERS includes close to 4 dozen symbols of various world faiths including ones so obscure that they make Wicca look as big as the Catholic church. The pentacle was being specifically excluded because of the Current Administration.

The Bush Administration filed an amicus curiae brief in this suit contesting the notion that the First Amendment covered Wicca. It argued that the pentacle would be a "divisive" symbol and wasn't really representative of a "real" religion. By the way, their argument was wholly untenable and also neglected to mention the 7 US Supreme Court decisions finding that Wicca is ABSOLUTELY a religion like any other....

Times like these I really do understand the feelings of people who are running around wearing the T-shirt that states: "1-20-09: Our National Nightmare Will End."

How DARE *any* president tell *any* faith community that it doesn't count? If a Wiccan president all of a sudden decided that the cross should not be allowed on soldiers' graves...there would be one HECK of an outcry (and such would be more than justified and I would be FIRST IN LINE yelling at the White House).

Anyway, the Constitution won out over the petty-mindedness of the ignorant and is stronger now than it was yesterday. ALL faiths prosper when NO faith is relegated to the back of the bus.

Hugs,
Alysoun