US Constitution, Article VI:

No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Today's Washington Post:

On July 6, [Pentecostal Christian Army chaplain Don Larsen] applied to become the first Wiccan chaplain in the U.S. armed forces, setting off an extraordinary chain of events. By year's end, his superiors not only denied his request but also withdrew him from Iraq and removed him from the chaplain corps, despite an unblemished service record.

How many Wiccans are there in the US military?

By the Pentagon's count, there are now 1,511 self-identified Wiccans in the Air Force and 354 in the Marines. No figures are available for the much larger Army and Navy. Wiccan groups estimate they have at least 4,000 followers in uniform, but they say many active-duty Wiccans hide their beliefs to avoid ridicule and discrimination.

How many Wiccan chaplains are there? Zero. We will note for the record that for other faiths:

Among the nearly 2,900 clergy on active duty are 41 Mormon chaplains for 17,513 Mormons in uniform, 22 rabbis for 4,038 Jews, 11 imams for 3,386 Muslims, six teachers for 636 Christian Scientists, and one Buddhist chaplain for 4,546 Buddhists.

Why this particular level of loathing for one--fast-growing they say, but still relatively miniscule--faith path? Gee, ya think it might have anything to do with a certain Bozo in Chief, whose devotion to the Constitution is, shall we say, just a tad suspect?

When a Texas newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, reported in 1999 that a circle of Wiccans was meeting regularly at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, then-Gov. George W. Bush told ABC's "Good Morning America": "I don't think witchcraft is a religion, and I wish the military would take another look at this and decide against it."

I know the Constitutional passage cited above is usually considered to be applied to elective offices only, but could one not make an argument that members of the military consitute holders of "...any Office or public Trust under the United States" ?

Might be worth a test case in court. Yeah, I know, this sounds like too trivial a matter given the competing urgent items on the agenda, but what would a slapback at the creeping Christianist agenda be worth in the long run?

I can help with neither lawyers, guns nor money, but I got a really nasty hex I'd be willing to donate to the cause. And I hate hexes, they're tricky and extremely liable to come back and bite the hexer in the ass. In this case though...count me in.