With the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage last week, my Facebook feed began to blow up. While some of the posts were celebratory, many, many contained bitter vitriol and unkind words directed at a generalization.  To say I was a bit surprised would be an understatement. The ugliness was not from the side you may think, either. The ones who were demanding tolerance and acceptance were behaving with such vileness I’ve ever had the displeasure to witness.

I purposely did not weigh in on this topic. Those close to me know my opinion.  I’m aware of what a charged topic this is and I have no desire to add fuel to either side of the fire. But I am disappointed. I’m disappointed in the behavior of those I thought were adults.  That bitter vitriol didn’t remain on other’s walls, it encroached on mine. And so that I wasn’t the flash point for a battle between all of my friends, who come from many different walks of life, social and political statuses, I started deleting those posts.  No, I don’t think that’s a form of censorship and I’m not violating anyone’s 1st Amendment rights.  If someone came up to your house and wrote something profane and incendiary on your garage door, you’d have it removed. That’s how I feel about my wall on Facebook. It represents me and while I will accept different opinions, if you can’t be appropriate, well then you won’t be on my wall. I wound up having to block some people. I’m not sorry. I fully support your right to post whatever you wish on your wall, but you will not tarnish me by posting something inappropriate on my wall.

After that, some of the ‘dialogue’ turned to direct message. That’s fine. That is an appropriate forum in which to have discourse. But even then, it wasn’t a back and forth exchange of opinions and ideas.  It was rant after rant, calling me names, assuming I felt opposite of the composer.  In most cases, I hadn’t fully formed my opinion at the time.  I was still reading through the entire decision. Yes, I read the decision because I feel it is my right and my duty as an American citizen to understand what the highest court in America said.  I am disappointed in the ruling, but not for the reasons you may think.  I think this ruling was very broad and dangerous in its scope and sets a legal precedent that I fear may be the undoing of our great nation, again, not for the reasons many would assume. Remember what assuming does.

People I had considered reasonable, mature friends turned out to be neither friendly, reasonable or mature. Kind of sad, really.  And so, I locked down my profile, unfollowed some (note: did not unfriend, just unfollowed and when did either of those words become verbs??!?!) and went about my business.  I did notice, however, the count of my friends started declining. The funny thing is, when I went through my friends list, it was hard to discern who was gone.  That says a lot right there.  Perhaps I was more important to them than they were to me. Oh well. That’s life.

I’ve also faced some criticism about my support of the Confederate Flag. It is a piece of US History, and though it has been commandeered by those with less than honorable intentions, it has a deeper meaning to those of us with Southern ties. It was the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, or Southern Cross, and not, as some erroneously refer to it, the Stars & Bars. That’s a whole other flag (see image below).  But the Battle Flag of the Confederacy is about my heritage. 

My granddaddy was born in Asheville, NC, descended from men who fought for State’s rights under that flag. They were not fighting for slavery. Most of my ancestors were poor farmers; they didn’t own slaves and they didn’t have a lot of land, but they sure wanted to keep what little they had and were tired of the North’s imposition. Thomas Jefferson said that the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. And so it happened again. That flag means to me that men who felt that they had traded one boot for another upon the neck of freedom were not afraid to fight for what they believed in.  Again.  That flag is the flag under which my ancestors died for a cause they believed in so deeply that they were willing to lay down their lives.  The irony is that there were many black southerners, free land owners that fought alongside these men. They were fighting for the same cause – their rights, their liberty.  And if you really want to get down to it, history glosses over the fact that the North had slaves and didn’t want slavery to end. But no one talks about that as it doesn’t serve the narrative that the South was evil and the Confederate Battle Flag is a symbol of oppression. Ironically, it is, but it’s symbolism for the Northern oppression of the South.

The thing is, I don’t like the rainbow flag, or anything rainbow,  but not because it’s become a symbol for gay rights.  There was an incident in my childhood with rainbows and to this day, the association is unpleasant.  However, I don’t go around demanding they be taken down and never displayed. Quite the contrary.  I am aware that to others it has a special meaning and I respect that. All that I ask is that you respect my right to display a flag of my heritage. That sounds reasonable and I hope on that, at least, we can all agree.