When Keith Ellison became the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, I was happy, not so much because he was Muslim, but because he was a progressive and also a Muslim. I would have been proud to vote for him, and I continue to be proud of the stances he takes on a variety of issues -- such as his being a co-sponsor of the Matthew Shepard anti-hate crimes bill which extends hate crimes protection to the "glbt" community. That he is Muslim is only frosting on the cake.

If he had been a socially conservative, pro-big business, Republican Muslim, I would not have been proud of him, and I would have voted for his socially liberal, pro-worker, Democratic contender, even though that person most likely would not have been Muslim. Religion, really, has nothing to do with it.

As for whether the army should hire a pagan chaplain (or many pagan chaplains), that really comes down to numbers. If there are enough pagans in the military to warrant a chaplain, then by all means, they deserve one. If on the other hand there are only a handful, then I can see that army may have a case that the good derived will not merit the expense.

Again, this is not a comment on the merits of paganism, rather a practical consideration. With thousands of religions being practiced throughout the world, it is not practical for the army to hire a chaplain for each one. They must set an arbitrary number and once the number of military personnel practicing a given religion reaches that number then they should hire a chaplain for them. This goes for Sikhs, Jains, Menonnites, Pagans, what have you.

With some predicting that Wiccans will be the third largest religious group in America by 2012, one suspects that there should indeed be several pagan chaplains.