Some positive news: a mega Confederate flag erected by the Virginia Flaggers will remain flying proudly despite the county’s attempt to force its removal.
The High Bridge Memorial Battle Flag was erected in April 2022 by a private landowner in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Despite the landowner having a permit to do so, and despite the zoning board of appeals siding with the landowner, the county’s Board of Supervisors went to court to force the flag to be taken down. When the Circuit Court ruled against them, the county appealed to the Virginia Appellate Court. But yesterday, the Appellate Court threw out the appeal, allowing the flag to stay. You can read a more detailed version of events in the Virginia Flaggers’ Facebook post.
“It is perfectly clear that the real issue is not the size of the flag, but the message they perceive it to communicate,” the Flaggers point out. The message that the flag communicates: acceptance and inclusion of people who are different. The fact that people who are different from the norm, have a right to exist. That’s the message that the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors – along with so many other people in our society – finds so objectionable. I am glad that, in this case at least, the intolerant bullies lost.