Confederate flag ban could go to court

[TexasTowelie]

by Jason Collins

(Bee) County leaders are in what they describe as a no-win situation following a ban on the flying the Confederate battle flag by those renting the Expo Center.

They cannot make everyone happy, and ultimately, it could end up in court despite the county attorney assuring them their actions were within legal bounds.

Nothing as of yet has been filed, although Judge David Silva said this was possible.

It is a position that is not unique to this county.

“We don’t know the specifics of this case, but people have a constitutional right to free speech, even offensive or racist speech. In our view, the best answer to offensive speech is not government restriction, but more speech,” said Tom Hargis, director of communications, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

During their Sept. 23 court meeting, when the ban occurred, commissioners were told that the order was legal.

Mike Knight, county attorney, said, “That is fine if the court wants that in the contract. You simply need to vote on that issue....”

The ban passed three to two. Silva along with Commissioners Carlos Salazar and Eloy Rodriguez voted in favor of the ban.

Commissioners Dennis DeWitt and Ken Haggard voted against it.

This comes up now because in only a few weeks, residents will gather for Western Week — which includes a barbecue cook-off.

Rodriguez said that he received a call after last year’s celebration that one of the competitors was flying the Confederate flag. That group was also flying at least four other flags, including the U.S. and Texas flags.

“The flying of the Confederate battle flag or similar flags, including the Texas Confederate flag, has no place in our society,” Rodriguez said during that meeting.

“The flag certainly has no place in Bee County.”

Silva said that he knows this issue is far from over.

He said it could even go to court — if someone files suit against the county over the issue.

In July, the Associated Press reported that Lexington’s ban on the flying of the Confederate flag on city light poles does not violate a heritage group’s right of free speech, a federal appeals court ruled.

“The Sons of Confederate Veterans had challenged the ordinance, saying it violated its constitutional rights and violated a 20-year-old court order when it enacted the ordinance in September 2011,” AP reported.

The appeals court panel said that, while the First Amendment guarantees free speech in a public forum, it “does not guarantee access to property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government.”

Last year, Hays High School board members issued a ban on the flag anywhere on district property.

The board previously removed the flag from the “home of the Mighty Rebels” 12 years prior.

The school’s superintendent, Jeremy Lyon, told reporters, “You can debate it endlessly as to what the meaning of the Confederate flag is. I do have a great respect for history, but the reality is that it’s a racially insensitive symbol.”

Also in 2012, Ben Jones, one of the stars of the hit television show “The Dukes of Hazzard,” began waging a war of words with NASCAR after they banned the General Lee from Phoenix International Raceway because the car’s rooftop Confederate flag.

“It’s political correctness run amuck, and I’m outraged,” Jones told Fox News.

This past Saturday, hundreds gathered along I-95, just south of Richmond, for the raising of the Stars and Bars.

The Virginia Flaggers erected the 10-by-15-foot flag atop a 50-foot flagpole.

The group says the goal is to “remind drivers of our honorable Confederate history and heritage.”

Knight said that Bee County’s policy was in line with what is permissible.

“We do control the use of that property subject to the other laws of the land,” he said.

Maintaining a balance between free speech and fair use is not always easy.

“This court, in its discretion, sits to balance those,” he said.

Silva said that he recognizes the historical significance of the flag.

“The Confederate flag is part of who we are,” he said. However, its use by hate groups has altered its meaning for so many that allowing it to be displayed would not be appropriate.

Source: http://mysoutex.com/view/full_story/23800285/article-Confederate-flag-ban-could-go-to-court?instance=bee_regional_news

[mbperrin]

1. It's the flag of a group of failed revolutionaries.

Among other things, they were attempting to keep slavery legal.

So yes, it is treasonous and racist to fly it.

What is so hard about that?

[Hoyt]

2. Texas Articles of Secession explain what confederate flag symbolized then. We know what it mean now.

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union -- 1861

. . . . . . She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association.


. . . . . . In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They [non-slave-holding states] demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

. . . . . . That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

. . . . . .By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South. . . . . .
________________

For an even uglier view -- read Mississippi's declaration.