Making Mountains Out of…Just About Everything!
Above you will see a video shot during the Lee-Jackson Celebration on Saturday January 14, 2012. Approximately 360 people marched in the parade (including the Virginia Flaggers which includes now famous Southern Heritage Advocates Susan Frise Hathaway, Still Karen and Billy Bearden) and about 1500 people attended the ceremony in the cemetery at Jackson’s grave site. This ceremony took place in Lexington, Virginia the site of a recently enacted flag ordinance that has been highly contested by Southern Heritage Advocates and the SCV’s is currently suing the city over the ordinance. Andy Hall of Dead Confederates posted over at Civil War Memory about the Lexington flag ordinance and he points out very clearly…
The ordinance bars any flag, other than the U.S. national flag, that of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the City of Lexington. There are lots of news stories out there that say the city banned Confederateflags, but that’s not what the ordinance actually says:
1. Only the following flags may be flown on the flag standards affixed to light poles in the City and no others:
a. The national flag of the United States of America (the “American flag”).
b. The flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Code of Virginia, Title 1, Chapter 5.
c. The City Flag of Lexington.
2. The American flag, the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City Flag of Lexington may be flown by the City on the light poles that have standards affixed to them on dates adopted by City Council. A copy of the dates for the flying of said flags is available through the City Manager’s office or the office of the director of public works. Currently the holidays or designated days are as follows: Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day, Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Lee-Jackson Day, Presidents Day, and on the day of the annual Rockbridge Community Festival. On such dates or days the flag(s) may be flown for more than one day. No other flag shall be permitted.
Nothing set forth herein is intended in any way to prohibit or curtail individuals from carrying flags in public and/or displaying them on private property.
Despite what one wants to believe, the flag ordinance does not single out and ban the rebel flag and has a pretty good chance at standing up in court. It should be painfully obvious to even the most casual observer that the rebel flag was alive and well in the city of Lexington on January 14th.
In another strange twist, the blowhards over at Facebook’s Virginia War Between the States Sesquicentennial, a site run by Susan F. Hathaway, has posted the picture below of Billy Bearden collecting the Lexington Proclamation declaring January 14th as Lee/Jackson Day. The question I have is why did Billy Bearden or any of the “Virginia Flaggers” have to pick up this declaration? Was it just to rub the day in the nose of the mayor who is now the target of these outsiders in her bid for re-election? Oddly there were others who confused the flag ordinance with the Lee-Jackson celebration. However, the celebration and day went off without a hitch, and they took lots of pictures including these which are a virtual whose-who of the Southern Heritage Advocate crowd…I will have to post on some of these pictures in a separate post.
Corey, Andy’s myopic focus on the wording of the ordinance is an artful but unsuccessful attempt to deflect attention from the whole picture. It ignores what was going on at the time of the passage of the ordinance, but anyone who even halfway paid attention knows that the ordinance was created specifically to keep Confederate flags off city flagstaffs. That is the sole reason for its existence.
How is what Andy posts “myopic”…he posted the wording of the ordinance. How they reached the ordinance is of no matter of the law. It does not ignore what was going on at the time of its passage. It appears there were numerous complaints and the city council in its official capacity acted in the best interest of the citizens of Lexington and passed a sound ordinance that many in the legal community say will stand muster in a court of law. Just because Connie Ward disagrees with it does not make it illegal or wrong!
I also find it quite interesting that you, a southern hertiage advocate, would as an outsider work to “overthrow” the mayor of Lexington. To quote you…”What business is it of yours to decide” what happens in Lexington, Va.?