Statement to Colorado Gazette
From: (name withheld)
Subject: Statement to Colorado GazetteDate: December 9, 2021 at 5:40:33 PM MST
If you are the organization that gave statement to the C Gazette that the Wreaths Across America should be stopped putting wreaths on the graves of our fallen soldiers at Arlington Cemetery I must comment my dismay and disappointment. I saw this reported on national news on Fox.
The wreaths are not a religious act. They are placed out of respect and honor during the Christmas season. These fallen were never able to ever again spend a Christmas with their families snd loved ones. Something you and I CAN do this Christmas. I SINCERELY HOPE YOU RETRACT THIS STATEMENT.
if I have contacted the wrong agency I am sorry. If correct I will spread word about your dishonor.
(name withheld)
Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member James Currie
Dear (name withheld):
I have been asked by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to respond to your recent email concerning a story about Christmas wreaths and MRFF you saw on Fox News. I do not know what religion you embrace or whether you favor any religion at all. But I pose the following for you: Let’s assume your relative was a practicing Christian and is buried in a VA cemetery with the Christian symbol—a cross—engraved on their tombstone. Assume I run an organization that decides to decorate all the graves in the cemetery with the Hindu religious symbols, which are the Aum (also called the Om) and the Swastika. You may not know it, but Hindus had the swastika long before the Nazis appropriated it. Just suppose my group of Hindus decided to honor all veterans in that cemetery by placing these symbols on every grave. How would you feel about that? Would you think that these symbols were not religious and were placed there “out of respect and honor during the Christmas season?” The very fact that these Christmas wreaths, as reported on Fox News, were placed on graves during Christmastime should offer you a clue as to their religious origin, but if you are still uncertain, here is what can be found if you look online:
“Wreaths originally served as Christmas tree ornaments, and not as the standalone decorations we’re familiar with today. They were formed into a wheel-like shape partially for convenience’s sake — it was simple to hang a circle onto the branches of a tree — but the shape was also significant as a representation of divine perfection. It symbolized eternity, as the shape has no end. Together, the circular shape and the evergreen material make the wreath a representation of eternal life. It is also a representation of faith, as Christians in Europe often placed a candle on the wreath during Advent to symbolize the light that Jesus brought into the world. A German Lutheran pastor named Johann Hinrich Wichern is often given credit for turning the wreath into a symbol of the Advent, and lighting candles of various sizes and colors in a circle as Christmas approached.”
The fact of the matter is that Christmas wreaths are as Christian as are any other symbols of Christianity, and for those veterans who did not embrace Christianity, their survivors are quite apt to be insulted—not honored—when someone places one of these Christian symbols on their relative’s grave. Every VA cemetery I have ever visited, as well as Arlington National Cemetery, which is managed by the U.S. Army, has tombstones with a wide variety of religious symbols on them. There are, in fact, seventy-four religious symbols accepted by the VA for placement on the tombstone of a veteran.
MRFF honors those who have served, and it honors the United States Constitution, which mandates that our government be neutral toward religion. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in January 1802 to the Danbury, CT, Baptists,
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people [meaning the First Amendment to the Constitution] which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church & State” endures today, and it is the reason why it is completely inappropriate for any group, governmental or private, to take it upon itself to place religious symbols on the graves of veterans who are buried in U.S. Government cemeteries. I did not see the Fox News broadcast, so I cannot speak directly to what it might have said, but MRFF, as is suggested by its name, stands for religious freedom for all those who serve or have served our great country. That is the greatest honor that can be given to a veteran: to respect their choice of religion or belief. That is a representation of the oath we all took: to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. MRFF is doing what it can to support and defend our Constitution, and I suggest to you that you should applaud its efforts.
Col. James T. Currie, USA (Ret.), Ph.D.
Board of Advisors, Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Ordained Elder, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member Mike Farrell
On Dec 9, 2021, at 11:56 PM, Mike wrote:
Hi (name withheld),
Watching Fox News is bad for the brain.
We did not express concern about “putting wreaths on the graves” at the cemetery. Our concern was about the thoughtlessness of placing symbols representing one religion on all the graves, regardless of the belief of the veteran interred there.
You see, veterans of many different belief systems lie in those cemeteries, and it is the height of arrogance and thoughtlessness to assume they all believe as you do.
The only dishonor done here, Sandy, is your assumption and Fox’s blather, suggesting that every veteran believes as you apparently think they should.
Mike Farrell (MRFF Board of Advisors)
Response from MRFF Board Member John Compere
On Dec 10, 2021, at 8:38 AM, John Compere wrote:
(name withheld),
The civility of your communication is sincerely appreciated.
Please understand some families of deceased military veterans do not want a religious organization to which they do not belong profiting & promoting itself & its version of religion by placing its religious wreath symbols on the graves of their deceased military veterans without permission. Those families consider it to be an uninvited & unwanted intrusion on the personal burial sites of their loved ones.The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (composed of 85% Christians) represents, when requested, the religious freedom right of those families to object & prevent what they believe to be thoughtless trespasses on the graves on their deceased family members. We do so because we respect & support the wishes of those families. For more complete information, please see militaryreligiousfreedom.org.
Most Sincerely,Brigadier General John Compere, US Army (Retired)Disabled American Veteran (Vietnam Era)Board Member, Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Recent Posts
- May 4, 2026 | No comments
- April 30, 2026 | 2 comments
3 Comments
Comments are closed.
Scumbags
Bill: who’s a scumbag? One who stands up for respect of all veterans and their various religious traditions, or one who leaves an anonymous, mindless insult on a website for no rational reason?
Let’s put this issue in a slightly different context:
The leaving of Christmas wreaths on non-Christians’ graves is not altogether different from a man putting his hand up a woman’s skirt without bothering to consider or ask whether the woman wants that hand between her legs.
A great many men engage in precisely this kind of activity but, irrespective of their numbers, nothing can ever make it right or, in most places, legal.
To further complicate the issue, such men often are married to women other than those under whose skirts they’re groping, and are fathers of daughters; in each case they would object and even become violent were they to find that a third party was engaging in that same activity with their wives or daughters.
As such, there’s more than a faint whiff of hypocrisy in all this, akin to how the pro-wreathers would react were unasked-for Jewish symbols being left on the graves of their Christian war dead.