A Red Flag in Edison
EDISON – There have been apologies and retractions all around after the township council last month banned American flags at meetings, dismissing them as mere props.
First the mayor and then the council president expressed regret and said the Stars and Stripes are welcome in the municipal complex after all.
Of course, trying to wipe the slate clean makes one think of the old cliche about “putting the toothpaste back in the tube.”
It’s tough to do.
As time moves on, the enduring image of this saga will be a man escorted out of a council meeting by police when he refused to stop waving a small American flag.
How did this happen?
Or to be a bit more blunt – How can elected officials be this clueless?
The answer is that many elected officials – regardless of party – live in a bubble, talking to and reacting only to themselves.
In the case at hand, the council in this Middlesex County town of slightly more than 100,000, was concerned about “decorum.”
A cynic might say that means council members were unhappy too many people were criticizing them at meetings.
Whatever the motivation, the council at its Nov. 25 meeting adopted two ordinances aimed at controlling behavior at meetings.
One reduced the time residents could address the council from six to four minutes.
That drew opposition from the audience, but objectively speaking, four minutes certainly is long enough to make a point. Some governing bodies limit speakers to three minutes.
An accompanying ordinance banned props at meetings. The intent may have been to prevent people from showing up with air horns or in strange costumes, but as everyone saw, it also included the American flag.
The ejection of a flag-waving resident did what you’d expect it to do in our world of social media.
Edison Township and its anti-flag ordinance reverberated throughout the national news cycle, and drew much condemnation locally as well.
Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, said:
“The adoption of this new law in Edison is disqualifying behavior from the town council.”
From the other side of the aisle came the ACLU, which, among other things, called the law “vague” and said enforcement is at the whim of the council president.
It didn’t take long for officials to backtrack.
The mayor, Sam Joshi, issued a statement Tuesday afternoon:
“Our nation’s flag has never, EVER, been banned, nor will it ever be banned in our municipal complex, or any government building that we solely operate. We are all proud Americans who believe in the principles, morals, and values the American Flag represents. I have spoken to the Council President regarding this matter and he has humbly apologized and issued his official statement for the confusion surrounding the recently passed decorum ordinance.”
At about the same time, Nish Patel, the council president, offered a statement of his own – one that mentioned his apologies not once, not twice, but three times.
So that ends it – at least officially.
However, you can expect the political ramifications to linger a bit longer.
How all this happened in the first place is still mind-boggling.
Guidelines for Display of the Flag
Public Law 94-344, known as the Federal Flag Code, contains rules for handling and displaying the U.S. flag. While the federal code contains no penalties for misusing the flag, states have their own flag codes and may impose penalties. The language of the federal code makes clear that the flag is a living symbol.
In response to a Supreme Court decision which held that a state law prohibiting flag burning was unconstitutional, Congress enacted the Flag Protection Act in 1989. It provides that anyone who knowingly desecrates the flag may be fined and/or imprisoned for up to one year. However, this law was challenged by the Supreme Court in a 1990 decision that the Flag Protection Act violates the First Amendment free speech protections.
Important Things to Remember
Traditional guidelines call for displaying the flag in public only from sunrise to sunset. However, the flag may be displayed at all times if it’s illuminated during darkness. The flag should not be subject to weather damage, so it should not be displayed during rain, snow and wind storms unless it is an all-weather flag.
It should be displayed often, but especially on national and state holidays and special occasions.
The flag should be displayed on or near the main building of public institutions, schools during school days, and polling places on election days. It should be hoisted briskly and lowered ceremoniously
VA.Gov
The Council members were not in agreement on the ordinance, which has not been repealed. Nish Patil has demonstrated that he is not qualified to be a member of the council.
In the above text the flag is referred to as a “living symbol”. Conversely originalist justices like Scalia hold the view that the constitution is a “ dead document”.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia famously said that the U.S. Constitution is a “dead document.” In a 2008 interview with National Public Radio (NPR), Justice Scalia argued against a living constitution.