Regarding the June 10th online Washington Post article, “Justice Alito Speaks Out About Political Divides Over Alleged Secret Recordings”:
I haven't been a Catholic or a theist of any kind for the last 20 years, but I find the imagery of the church still compelling in its richness, even grotesqueness, and when I read about Martha Ann Alito's desire to fly a flag of the Sacred Heart of Jesus inscribed with the word “vergogna” (Italian for “shame”) as a rebuke to the Pride flag, it struck me personally.
I am an Italian-American gay man who grew up seeing this image in my home and at the Sacred Heart Church of Jesus, Mary and St. Stephen in Brooklyn, which I attended as a child. I have long been fascinated by the image of the wounded, burning heart symbolizing Jesus’ love and the story of how it became popular. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a 17th-century nun who made a profession of faith with her own blood, claimed to have had visions of God, including one in which Jesus instructed her to urge King Louis XIV to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart. Doing so, she said, would give France the strength to defeat the enemies of the Church. The tension between God’s love and militancy in Sister Mary Margaret’s vision remains with us today.
I'm a painter, so for me the best way to respond was through my art. In designing a flag that reflected Alito's ambitions, I wanted to appropriate the imagery of the Sacred Heart and expand on its contradictions. I started by simply overlaying the colors of the traditional Pride flag onto a stylized version of the Sacred Heart depicted on an old French prayer card, which bore the legend, “Here is a heart that loved people deeply. It is all love and mercy.”
I have retained the symbols that originally appeared on the prayer card as appropriate to this changed context: the spear of persecution, which also has sexual connotations, the crown of thorns, ironically alluding to kingship (or queenship), and the fire, with its dual meaning of sacrifice and consuming passion. My design expresses the strength of pride and resistance in the face of persecution, rather than God's love being showered upon sinners who rebel against Him.
The legend of “senza vergogna” (“without shame”) is alluded to. This doesn't mean I know or care what Jesus would say about this, but I think Alito's plan to use the Sacred Heart to confront and shame those who celebrate LGBTQ+ identities is even further removed from the love and mercy that imagery represents than my own use of the Sacred Heart in this design.
Having guarded the flag for our town for 25 years, I feel I have a voice in the Alito flag debate. Every day, I raise the American flag at the spot in Carlisle, Massachusetts, where on April 19, 1775, the Minutemen gathered and prepared to march to the North Bridge.
One day, as I was struggling to raise the flag in a strong wind, an older gentleman, a Vietnam War veteran, stopped to help me. He was worried the flag would touch the ground. His emotion and pride in the flag was clear. He saluted as the flag was raised, thanked me, and walked away. This moment highlights the reverence many people have for the flag.
In contrast, Justice Martha Ann Alito's actions show a disturbing disregard for this symbol. Whether or not she intended to express contempt for our democracy or our neighbors, her actions are wrong. Justice Samuel A. Alito's response is similarly troubling. His assertion that this is a domestic issue that does not merit intervention calls into question his objectivity and sincerity. His failure to address this simple act displays his judicial arrogance.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Concord and Lexington, I will continue to fly our flag with the respect it deserves.
Tom Ratcliffe, Carlisle, Massachusetts
My wife and I decided to follow Martha Ann Alito's lead and raise our own banners: “Make America Tolerant Again,” “Make America Informed Again,” and “Make America a Secular Democracy Again.”
What happened to “love your neighbor”?
Some of my family, friends, and neighbors hang flags and banners, usually related to a holiday or a sentiment like “Welcome to my home” or “I love my dog,” but when thinking about what to hang, I have yet to see a distress signal be an option.
Another explanation is that Martha Ann Alito was upset about a vulgar word on a sign in her neighbor's yard. I live in a very conservative state. If I decided to put up a distress signal every time I saw a sign with that vulgar word about President Biden, my yard would be full of upside-down flags!
Chloe Watson, Independence, West Virginia
It's also our great old flag
At first, I laughed when I read Rick Reilly's Friday, June 14 opinion column, “Since when does Trump own an American flag?”. The column said that Donald Trump was mistaken for a Trump fan because he was carrying an American flag. I've made the same mistake on the other side. After Joe Biden won the election in 2020, we were celebrating with friends on our front porch when we saw a pickup truck approach with a large American flag flying behind it. We grimaced inwardly, expecting some anti-Biden/Trump fans in our heavily Republican county. As they approached, we were amazed to see a prominent Biden sign on their truck! We cheered, raised our glasses in salute, and they circled the block to join in.
We grew up in a home where our father served in World War II, so we have some pretty old-fashioned ideas about flag etiquette. We only fly the flag on appropriate holidays. We set the flag on fire. We never drop it to the ground. We only fly flags that are in good condition. We work with our local American Legion chapter to properly retire flags that are fraying or approaching fading. The flag is a symbol of loyalty to American democracy and honoring the sacrifices of our servicemen and women. It's painful to watch our Trump-supporting neighbors let our flag fade, rot on the ground, and treat it as a symbol of their political leanings rather than a symbol of our country.
No, Trump doesn't own the flag. The American people own it.
Jean Selbo, Warrenton, Virginia
I'm a flag scholar and professional flag enthusiast. Every year I get inquiries about the American flag and all the rules surrounding its use. The fact that there are formal rules governing how our nation's flag should be treated with respect, yet so few people know about them, much less follow them, speaks volumes about the American public's attitude toward the flag.
U.S. flag laws are broken every day, usually while patriotic Americans look on and swell with pride. Watch as a large flag is carried across the field every time a local sporting event hosts a “Military Appreciation Game.” This violates point (c) of the “Respecting the Flag” section, which states, “The flag shall never be carried flat or horizontally, but shall always be held high and free.” When teams remove their hats to sing the national anthem, they sometimes display special team logos filled with the U.S. flag instead of team colors. This violates the law many times over.
I find it interesting that there is no public debate or outrage about these violations, yet people who kneel during the national anthem make the news for a month. Earlier this year, I stopped counting all Memorial Day sales that used the flag in their advertising (which is also prohibited by the Flag Code). Did you see anyone protest a used car dealership for using the flag and memorializing fallen soldiers in their advertising? Neither did I.
In 1990, the Supreme Court struck down the Flag Protection Act and thus the enforcement of the Flag Law. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the symbolic importance of the flag does not infringe on First Amendment rights and that the Flag Law is merely a set of social norms and traditions — at least in civilian use. So why is the Flag Law still used to reprimand people for dropping the flag?
What I have found is that the Flag Code is usually only brought up when it supports someone's patriotism, and they want to use it as a weapon against anyone with a different view.
Michael Green, Indianapolis
The author is the founder of Flags For Good.
While reading Rick Reilly's Flag Day op-ed, I was reminded of a comment I heard from a comedian decades ago. Unfortunately, I only remember the joke, not the person who said it, but to paraphrase, “We should require the American flag to be made of asbestos, so it can't be burned and it would be obnoxious for politicians to wrap themselves in it!”
Paul Whitmore, Spotsylvania, Virginia
