Confederate flags don’t belong on state-issued Texas plates

From the moment Southern segregationists and hate groups adopted the Confederate battle flag as their symbol of identity, they forever relegated the emblem to a place of dishonor for many Americans.

Because of that historical context, which connects the banner to the institution of slavery and discrimination, the image of the flag has no place on a Texas license plate or any other state property.

That issue was argued this week before the U.S. Supreme Court because the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans was denied a specialty license plate that would bear the group’s logo featuring the battle flag.

The Department of Motor Vehicles board, in rejecting the group’s request, said the flag is offensive to many individuals and groups. The Sons said the rejection violated their freedom of speech.

And this was the question before the high court: Is the message on a license plate the speech of the individual who displays it on a vehicle, or does it come from the state that has control over issuing the tags with its name?

The justices asked the group’s attorney a key question: If the state were required to allow issuance of a plate with the Confederate battle flag, would it have to accept other offensive language and symbols — a swastika, a racial slur, praise for jihad or “Bong Hits for Jesus”?

The attorney’s answer was straightforward: “Yes.”

I have long argued that individuals and groups have a right to display the divisive standard on their pickups, clothing, front porch or other private property. But unless it is part of a historical display, it should have no place on public property.

Keep in mind, the controversial flag we’re talking about today is not the official banner of the Confederate States of America. It is just what it’s called, the Confederate battle flag, which during the civil-rights movement took on a more significant meaning as Southern states flew it over their capitol buildings and incorporated its design into their state flags.

Those who fought against equal rights and in favor of segregation proudly waved that most familiar ensign, making it synonymous with discrimination, no matter how much some people today deny it.

My good friend Jerry Patterson, former land commissioner of Texas and a member of the Sons, argued in a column this week that the Confederate group is much like another organization, the Buffalo Soldiers, which he sponsored before the DMV for a specialty plate.

He couldn’t understand why that group, honoring African-American servicemen, was granted approval when the Buffalo Soldiers took part “in a genocidal war against an entire race of people, the American Plains Indians, resulting in their enslavement on reservations.”

Surely Patterson, a student of Texas, Confederate and American history, realizes that those soldiers were in service to the United States of America and were carrying out the orders of their government, for which they received much praise and were generally granted hero status.

That is not to say that Patterson and other descendants of rebel soldiers shouldn’t be proud of their heritage and honor their ancestors in ways they feel appropriate.

But they’ve chosen a symbol that has been co-opted and has taken on a meaning that will always be much more than an emblem of pride. It will forever remain offensive to some.

Who knows what the justices on the Supreme Court will do. Those who make up the typical majority these days are perhaps the most political and ideological group since 1896, when the nation’s highest court approved racial segregation and the doctrine of “separate but equal.”

If the court does uphold the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that Texas must allow the battle flag on its specialty plates, then the state could get out of the specialty plate business.

That would be a shame, because the program has brought well over $25 million into the state general fund and hundreds of thousands of dollars for various charities and organizations.

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Confederate flags don’t belong on state-issued Texas plates."