Log In


Reset Password
Opinion Editorial Cartoons Op-Ed Editorials Letters to the Editor

House vote shows an unusual alliance in opposition to divisive old symbol

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to restrict displays of the Confederate flag in national cemeteries. It was a just and moral move made all the more interesting by the make up of those who supported it.

The vote was on an amendment to a bill funding the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects. The amendment was introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif. It bars large-scale, government-funded displays of the Confederate flag in cemeteries run by the department. It would still allow families to put small Confederate flags on individual graves on Memorial Day and Confederate Memorial Day.

The amendment passed 265-159, largely along party lines. The exceptions to the party-line voting, however, were remarkable. The sole Democrat to vote against the bill was Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, who is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. And some of the Republicans who voted for it were some of the House’s more prominent conservatives.

Two examples are Reps. Darrell Issa of California and Colorado’s Rep. Mike Coffman from Aurora. Besides party affiliation, Issa and Coffman have something else in common that may have influenced their votes. Both are veterans of the U.S. Army. (The only veteran in Colorado’s congressional delegation and the only Colorado Republican to support the amendment, Coffman has also served in the Marine Corps.)

Although often defended as a token of Southern heritage, the Confederate flag is widely viewed today as a symbol of racism and resistance to the extension of civil rights to African Americans. And in fact, the underlying cause of the Civil War was the south’s intention to perpetuate and extend slavery.

While the confederacy adopted several flags, the one familiar today is properly known as the Confederate Battle Flag. In its day it was flown and acknowledged as an emblem of violent opposition to the United States and in particular to the U.S. Army.

Perhaps Issa and Coffman could not abide using Veterans Affairs money to display a flag flown by forces arrayed against the same Army in which they served – and the nation they swore to defend.



Reader Comments