The thing is no HOA can 'Ban' display the of the US Flag, that's the Law.
But as to how it's displayed, they CAN and legally do have a say. And a 16' ft tall Flag Pole wouldn't sit well, not with me either (who knows what other type of Flag he or someone else would fly?). Plus, they have 12' high Flag Poles that you can install and would bother nobody. I've looked into getting one of those myself.
This story sounds like he wanted to push some buttons from the beginning.
I thought HOA’s hung out on street corners!
I am the attorney who represented Ron Tripodo. The statute only protects display of the American Flag, and a flagpole is part of the display. There is a long-standing Flag Code that had been around as long as this country. 16’ feet is the proper height. There is an exception within the statue whereby an HOA could craft narrow time, manner, use restrictions regarding display of the flag as long as the rules did not infringe upon a reasonable display of the flag. The Bridgemill HOA chose not to avail itself to the statutory exception. The HOA instead relied upon an an application process followed by a yes/no committee vote with no articulated guidelines. That failed under the language of the statute, so Bridgemill lost. The problem with a committee vote is that it is quite arbitrary. The committee was free to reject any flag display for any reason it saw fit.
I agree with you— and him.
Some buttons need pushing— hard.
Any alleged American who would be offended in any way by another American’s display of the American flag (other flags* not being a point at issue here) is someone I would personally like to go out of my way and to extra expense to offend.
*You could make a reasonable case for limiting the type of flag that could be thus displayed; say to present day national, state/provincial, and city flags, but no rainbows, Gadsdens, Petopia (Family Guy reference), advertising etc. Note, however, that the law cited by the home-OWNER specifically referred to the US Flag. The flying of the flags of DPRK or PRC, while somewhat disturbing, could be seen as a marker for those of us who are vigilant and prefer our enemies self-identified rather than camouflaged.