Greetings!

I apologize for the long delay in getting this documentation sent out
to the list.  I hope there's still sufficient time for responses.

-Ailis


3: Ailis Linne - New Badge
(Fieldless) a mullet of five points voided and interlaced within and
conjoined to an annulet azure.

This submission is intended to directly challenge the current
applicability of prior precedents regarding the unregistrability of a
mullet voided and interlaced (also known as a pentacle or a
pentagram).

There is a long history of rulings regarding this charge, beginning as
early as one by Ioseph of Locksley in 1973 and including rulings or
correspondence in 1976, 1978, 1979, 1990, 1994, and 1996.  The ruling
in 1990 was actually appealed to the BoD, as reflected and discussed
on the April 1991 Cover Letter
(http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/1991/04/cvr.html).  As specified in that
Cover Letter the primary argument is that "the device was not returned
for its specific religious content as perceived by the submitter and
her co-religionists, but for the specific anti-religious content as
perceived by a far larger number of people, both within and without
the SCA."

For the return of Elzabeth Osanna Zelter's device (Argent, upon a
mount vert, a pavilion between in chief two mullets voided and
interlaced azure) in 1994
(http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/1994/07/lar.html) and the return of the
appeal of the same in 1996
(http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/1996/05/lar.html) the argument was made
that the pentacle symbol had become more common in modern commercial
and political venues, supporting the position that the charge had
become more inoffensive to the population at large.  The
counter-argument was made that pentacles and pentagrams were still
being plainly called "satanic symbols" in newspaper articles across
the US (by chiefs of police law enforcement officers, etc).  After
considering the various arguments, Shayk Da'ud ibn Auda, Laurel King
of Arms, felt "compelled to uphold the prior precedents disallowing
the registration of mullets of five points voided and interlaced,
whether within and conjoined to an annulet or standing by themselves.
[Based on the evidence presented, s]uch charges still are perceived by
a significant portion of the population as [a] "satanic symbol", and
hence cannot be registered by the College."


However, the presence and acceptance of Wicca as a religion in the
United States has grown drastically in the past decade.  The US
military services have acknowledged the Wiccan religion in their
Chaplain's handbook since at least 1990
(http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_usbk.htm and
http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/psa/articles/usarmy.html and
http://www.heart7.net/toc-chap.html).  More recently, the association
of the pentacle with the Wiccan religion was acknowledged by the US
government when the pentacle became the Wiccan religious symbol
allowed on the Government-furnished headstones of fallen US soldiers
(http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hm/hmemb.asp).  This is a change in
governmental policy made in April 2007 as part of a settlement between
the VA and the families of fallen Wiccan soldiers
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18274639/).

Beyond government recognition of the religion and the pentacle as its
symbol, there is also the growth of the Wiccan religion itself.  The
American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) shows that between
1990 and 2001, the number of adults in the US who identified as Wiccan
increased from 8,000 to 134,000
(http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm).
 Along with that growth has come greater recognition of Wiccanism _and
its symbols_.  In 2005, a teen in Alabama (and his mother) got the
school to lift a ban on pentacles as religious symbols
(http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/teenpage/051004/wiccan.shtml).
 And, interestingly, when pentagrams were found at a vandalized ice
rink in Abilene Texas in late 2007
(http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/Jan/01/pentagram-not-just-a-wiccan-symbol/),
the reporter identified them as "Wiccan" symbols... not satanic ones.

With the plethora of information available online, I thought that
finding news stories about 'satanic symbols' would be easier than it
was in 1996.  However, I found only three articles that actually
describe a satanic symbol as a star or pentagram
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337833,00.html ,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jul/13/kateconnolly , ... and I
can't re-find the story about a church lawn being burnt, I apologize).
 I found some references to the satanic symbol being specifically an
inverted star.  I also found a well thought-out document written by a
detective in Vancouver describing occult symbolism for police officers
to better understand what symbols might be associated with which types
of occult beliefs
(http://www.nagia.org/Gang%20Articles/Occult%20Symbols.htm).  To give
some context to these findings, however, I need to mention that in the
same search I discovered that (1) a State Assemblyman in New Jersey
wants to change the hockey team name to something other than "The
Devils" (http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2071410), (2) the
traditional Texas Longhorn's hand gesture is associated with the devil
in Norway (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327121/posts),
and (3) there are people in Colorado that believe that the peace sign
is a Satanic symbol
(http://www.gilroydispatch.com/opinion/199677-ordered-to-remove-that-satanic-symbol--the-peace-sign).


The conclusion I come to from all of this is that there is an
ever-growing recognition in the public arena of the pentacle as a
non-evil, religious symbol.  The US government has even declared it
non-offensive enough to put on the tombstones of fallen soldiers.  So,
while there are still... and will always be... some people who see the
pentacle (and many, many other symbols) as a sign of satanism, that
faction is no longer a significant part of the population.