Free Republic

When Charlotte veteran Allen Thornwell lowered his employer’s American flag to half-staff on Memorial Day, he says he did not think to ask permission or consider the possibility that he had done anything wrong. Instead, the 29-year-old former Marine, who served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says he was thinking about his country, the meaning of the holiday and his best friend, Geoff, another Marine who killed himself two years ago after returning stateside. On Tuesday, Thornwell was fired. A manager at the placement service that arranged the vet’s job at Time Warner Cable in Charlotte told him...

A Rhode Island city official called the city’s firefighters “terrorists” and compared them to ISIS for putting an American flag on their firetruck. The firefighters say they have been told to remove the flag by city officials. A local NBC affiliate obtained audio of Central Coventry Fire District Chairman Fred Gralinski making the comparison at a board meeting. “They look like a bunch of yahoos,” Gralinski said. “Like in the paper, like ISIS in Syria going to take over a city. I don’t think they need that big flag on the back of the truck. That’s not America to me....

Flags will fly at half-staff across the United States to honor former First Lady Nancy Reagan who died Sunday at age 94.

The Washington Post tweeted a disturbing photo that may show what some Hillary Clinton staffers really think about the American flag.

Jackson Hole High principal Scott Crisp blamed the results of a student survey and his concerns that some students may feel excluded if they see an American flag for the administration’s decision to cancel “America Pride Day.”

School leaders in Dickson County decided, after a summer of controversy surrounding the confederate flag, the wise thing to do would be to ban all flags and banners. Some students are angry as they feel their patriotism is being compromised. School leaders said there is a right and wrong way to show American pride: "It's not an unpatriotic act by any means because we have a number of ways in which students do learn how to be patriotic and express American pride." -snip Students said they were told they would get kicked out if they bring an American flag onto...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/national/carroll-county-students-told-remove-american-flags/nnKGj/ A high school student says when his mother came to pick him up in his truck that was flying an American flag, a staff member told them it wasn’t allowed to be flown on school property. Now multiple students at Mount Zion High School in Carrolton are standing behind him and flying flags on their cars.

SHELBY, N.C. (BP) – North Carolina pastor Rit Varriale wants to see churches fly the Christian flag above the American flag as a biblical statement, reversing flag etiquette that calls for the American flag to be flown in the prominent position. Varriale, as senior pastor of Elizabeth Baptist Church in Shelby, N.C., said the church installed its first-ever flagpole in order to raise the two flags in a special ceremony after morning worship on Sunday (July 5) in which the Christian flag was raised in the higher position — which prompted interviews by Charlotte-area NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates. “If...

Surrounded by nearly 50 activists, Crystal Wilson steadied a small American flag in one hand, and a lighter in the other. "The American flag holds as much hatred, as much oppression, as much blood as the Confederate flag," said Wilson, 25. She sparked the lighter, guiding the small flame to the red, white and blue cloth. It caught fire, and burned away the flecks of fabric. Another activist raised two smaller flags to the fire, and a third raised a full-sized American flag to the conflagration. Together, the emblems of freedom withered into tiny black bits on the sidewalk. The...

An Illinois school board reportedly fired the teacher who stepped on an American flag in class on May 15 at a local high school. The Mattoon Journal Gazette reports that the Martinsville school board voted unanimously Thursday to dismiss English teacher Jordan Parmenter, effective immediately. Parmenter, 26, told the paper Sunday he was present in the meeting, where he was addressed by the board and answered questions from all six of the board members. Parmenter didn’t speak further into the matter until he had a chance to speak with a union representative.

Last week, millions of Facebook users gave their profile pictures a rainbow makeover to celebrate the double Pride/Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling but an unpleasant backlash has begun. The translucent rainbow tool was laid on by Facebook itself, but a number of third-party apps are now offering an American flag equivalent to people opposed to gay marriage and equality in general.

...Sure enough, Farrakhan wasted no time attacking the U.S. flag. "We need to put the American flag down," he said after telling his audience America doesn't care about the nine people killed in a historic black Charleston church.

Don’t tread on this flag. That’s the message Air Force veteran and former Playboy model Michelle Manhart says she was trying to convey by picking up a damaged flag that protesters had been stomping on in a demonstration at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia on Friday.

A California school dispute that arose when students wore shirts emblazoned with the American flag on Cinco de Mayo could prompt the Supreme Court to take a new look at free-speech rules for high schools. Ever since students protested the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands, the justices have said the 1st Amendment protects the rights of students to peacefully protest at school, so long as their actions do not lead to a "substantial disruption." In recent years, however, some school officials have moved to curtail political fashion statements such as wearing T-shirts with Confederate flags or anti-gay slogans. They...

State Republican lawmakers said they will introduce a constitutional amendment that would prohibit state funded colleges and universities from banning the American flag on campuses, a move that comes a week after a student government council at UC Irvine banned the flag from being displayed in a school lobby. UC Irvine’s broader student government body vetoed the controversial measure on Saturday. But, Sen. Janet Nguyen and fellow Republicans said they will move forward with the constitutional amendment. Nguyen and her family fled Vietnam as refugees, which Reeder said made the issue of banning the American flag personal. “For her it’s...

The Star-Spangled Banner will once again wave at the University of California, Irvine, after student government leaders nixed a bid to ban the American flag from a campus lobby. Members of the executive cabinet of the Associated Students of UC Irvine met Saturday in an emergency session to reverse the flag ban.

<p>Students at the University of California, Irvine have voted to make their school a more “culturally inclusive” place by banning the American flag.</p> <p>The Associated Students of University of California (ASUCI) passed a resolution March 3 that would remove the Stars & Stripes along with every other flag from the lobby of a complex housing the offices of the student government.</p>

The Associated Students of University of California, Irvine voted to ban hanging flags in its main lobby. The flag banning legislation passed with six yea votes, four nay, and two abstentions. he Associated Students of University of California, Irvine (ASUCI) voted Tuesday to remove all flags, including American flags, from an inclusive space on campus because of their offensive nature. The bill, R50-70, was authored by Social Ecology Representative Matthew Guevara, and accuses all flags, especially, the American flag, of being “symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism.” “[F]lags construct paradigms of conformity and sets [sic] homogenized standards for others...

OCEANSIDE, Calif. - Three 18-year-olds were behind bars Tuesday on suspicion of defacing American flags in a North County senior housing neighborhood last summer. Ruben Jimenez, Daniel Moran and Breanna Alexis Serrato allegedly spray-painted the three flags -- writing "(expletive) USA" on one of them -- in the 3800 block of Rosemary Way in Oceanside late on the evening of July 18, according to Lt. Leonard Cosby. A surveillance camera captured images of the crimes, he said.

Woodruff High School in Spartanburg, South Carolina confiscated American flags from the vehicles of four students this past week. The school’s principal, Aaron Fulmer, explained that “professions of patriotism do not write a ‘blank check’ for egregious behavior. Many of our undocumented students may feel intimidated by such flagrant demonstrations. And as President Obama has pointed out, the American flag, like the Confederate flag, is seen as a symbol of oppression in many parts of the world.” “Flaunting so-called American exceptionalism also contradicts the lesson of humility our school is trying to inculcate,” Fulmer said. “The United States is just...