The House on Tuesday evening passed an amendment that would prohibit Confederate flags from being displayed on graves in federal cemeteries, The Hill reported.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) proposed the ban as an amendment to the Interior Department spending bill.
Currently, the National Park Service allows individuals to place Confederate flags on Civil War veterans’ graves on Confederate Memorial Day, according to The Hill.
The House on Tuesday also passed an amendment that would prohibit concession stores on National Park Service land from selling items featuring the Confederate flag, according to The Hill. The National Park Service in June asked that stores refrain from selling Confederate flags after numerous businesses stopped selling the flags in the wake of the shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina.
Why were stores in National Parks selling confederate flags in the first place? That’s like German stores in their national parks selling Nazi flags.
My guess it that they were mostly the Civil War battlefield parks. It has been awhile, but I seem to remember the giftshop at the Gettysburg national park having some stuff with the Confederate flag. Things like posters/postcards of paintings of battles that featured soldiers carrying the different flags (which seem like they have enough context to be a bit more acceptable) ranging to those little confederate flags on dowels (which seem more dubious).
edit: Thinking about it is there a giftshop/store associated with the museum/park for the USS Arkansas in Pearl Harbor? How do they handle the Imperial Japanese flag? I’m sure there are some items that bear that flag, but I doubt any of them are lionizing/glorifying it. Maybe a similar approach could be taken with the types of Confederate flag items that are featured in Civil War battlefield park giftshops/stores?
I think this sort of thing goes a bit far.
It is okay to sell Confederate flags at Civil War related locations. Battle sites are where the flags would logically be along as the appropriate museums. And, if the person buried died in the Civil War as a Confederate, which I don’t know ever comes up, it is probably okay to mark it as such. I do think it okay to ban the flag on federal graves just as a sign of “Southern heritage” in the defense of treason. But, I’m more open to this across the board ban than not selling flags of the enemy at a battle site.
Yesterday Josh asked this questions about the flag: “When did the final moment come in your mind?”
This is my answer
I knew the flag was coming down when I saw the coverage of Sen. Pinckney lying in state at the rotunda of the capitol building. I don’t know if you noticed, but there was a great, floor-to-ceiling glass window on one wall. It was obviously put there to give a great and unobstructed view of the confederate flag from the capitol and I bet it was put there in retaliation for the flag being removed from the state house. While Sen. Pinckney was lying in state, they had erected a large curtain to block off that window. That’s when I knew that flag would come down and if it came down in SC, it would come down everywhere.
In my opinion, the real tipping point was Sen. Pinckney. This man had spent his life earning the respect and affection of everyone, black and white. I do believe that it was this man particularly that was the catalyst, but it was also because it happened in a house of worship, and in that particular house of worship, and that it was such an ugly, ugly hateful crime and the victims were such lovely innocent people. All those things were the tipping point, IMHO.
When the SC government hid that flag on that day, I think it was the first time in history that a southern state was officially embarrassed by that flag. Also, for the first time ever, the state acknowledged that that flag is offensive to some of their citizens.
That was a tpping point.
Not 100% certain about this. If a family wants to label their great, great grandfather as a traitor, I suppose I wouldn’t be too upset. (I know, that’s not what they are really doing.) It’s not nearly the issue of flying the flag at a statehouse. It is a Federal cemetery though so…I don’t know.