In September of last year, driving by Chattanooga’s largest private school, an outstanding Christian school we have supported for decades with scholarships for at-risk kids, I was dismayed — outraged, actually — to see the enormous flag they proudly fly in front of the school lowered to half-staff. The school is a very well-managed organization, but administrators had never established a policy regarding when to abide by presidential flag proclamations, other than abide by all federal orders. Thus, a staff person was dutifully following those proclamations when issued.

I was outraged because the flag was lowered in memorial honor after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the result of a proclamation by then-president Donald Trump. The school is now considering a revised policy regarding its flag protocols.

Let me be clear: Presidential flag proclamations apply only to federal installations, not to state and local government installations, and certainly not to private organizations — all of which may elect to lower their flags. But for a Christian organization to abide by frivolous and politically-motivated federal orders for federal institutions, is tantamount to acquiescing to a central government that is, progressively, suppressing the First Amendment rights of Christians.

Trump’s RBG order followed the standardized flag etiquette proclamation for lowering flags set by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954. Eisenhower ordered that flags should be lowered for 30 days after the death of the president or a former president and for 10 days after the death of the vice president or a SCOTUS chief justice or a speaker of the House. For an associate justice and other notable national leaders, the flag is to be displayed at half-staff from the day of death until interment. The flag is lowered for one day following the death of a member of Congress.

There are annual days when flags are lowered on federal installations: Peace Officers Memorial Day (15 May, sunrise to sunset); Memorial Day (last Monday in May, sunrise to 1200); Patriot Day (11 September, sunrise to sunset); National Firefighters Memorial Day (first Sunday in October, sunrise to sunset); and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (7 December, sunrise to sunset). It is appropriate and fitting that private organizations also honor these annual days for lowering flags, most notable among them being Memorial Day.

To understand why ALL Americans should honor Memorial Day and reject the use of that day for commercial profiteering, read our latest veteran profile, “An Orphan’s Medal of Honor,” and visit our Memorial Day tribute page. Also see our flag etiquette page.

Legitimate reasons for ordering flags to half-staff notwithstanding, over Joe Biden’s first months of unprecedented presidential malfeasance, he has repeatedly ordered American flags to half-staff to align with his race-hustling or gun control political agendas. That prompted my first objection to this degradation of our flag two months into the Biden/Harris regime change: “Biden Uses Flags as Political Rags.”

Five times since then, Biden has ordered flags to half-staff to memorialize the victims of mass killings where the assailant used a firearm, the latest being the San Jose tragedy where nine of our fellow Americans were killed.

In each of those cases, on the heels of his proclamations, Biden has predictably and disgracefully used those incidents to promote his assault on the Second Amendment —thus indisputably, an abject desecration of those flag proclamations.

For the record, regarding such tragedies, only a sociopath would feel no sense of empathy for the families and friends of those who have been murdered or violently assailed by sociopaths. But for perspective, beyond the high-profile incidents where innocents are murdered, in 2020 there was a surge in the daily murder average, now estimated at more than 52 murders every day. Those murders occur primarily in Democrat-controlled urban centers, and arguably they’re a direct generational result of Democrat social policies. Of course, honoring those victims does not fit the Demos’ political narrative, and changing those policies does not fit their agenda.

In effect, politically-motivated orders to lower our national flag demeans its memorial lowering for appropriate expressions of honor, as in the case with Memorial Day Monday. Bottom line, America: STOP lowering your flags to comport with politically motivated flag proclamations.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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