The winds of change are blowing…and the status quo is losing a bit of its…status.
This has been a week of momentous happenings in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
On June 17, 2015, a young white boy of 21 years, named Dylan Roof, walked into an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened fire and took the lives of nine black people who had gathered there for bible study.
It was a senseless act of violence and racial hatred that opened old wounds…for it was certainly not the first time a black church had been violently attacked in the south.
His actions, together with the discovery that he was a confederate flag aficionado, have triggered renewed discussion for removing that symbol, forever stained with slavery and racism, from locations that tend to give it the imprimatur of government sanction.
One of those is the South Carolina State Capitol grounds.
This week the Supreme Court handed down two historic rulings.
One of those upheld, once again and for the final time, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, or what some like to call, obamacare.
Even more significantly, the Court ruled that LGBT couples have the same rights to marry as straight couples.
All of this has the nation in an uproar…with some celebrating and applauding and others talking of secession and mass civil disobedience.
I’m going to suggest in this post that everyone on all sides of these issues take a step back, along with a deep breath, and consider what’s really important…
Our founding document says as much…
That all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights…to life, liberty and happiness.
That concept is not about any particular ideology…it’s an ideal.
It’s an ideal we’ve never quite lived up to, but that doesn’t mean we should not keep striving towards it.
Being gay is not an ideology…
Neither is it ideological for a gay person to desire to have the right to marry, just as a straight person already enjoys…
Likewise, being healthy is not an ideology…
Neither is it ideological for a sick and poor person to desire to have the right to receive adequate health care, just as someone with financial means already enjoys…
Arguments to the contrary, either based on religious beliefs, capitalistic free market concepts, or just because one hates Barack Obama…
those are ideological.
And that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do because that’s what our constitution really stands for…
the IDEAL of equality.
I am from the south, borne and raised in the Carolinas.
The confederate flag means different things depending on perspective, but you can never wash the stain of slavery and racism from it…
and for that reason alone, it should be taken down.
And arguments to the contrary, once again, are ideological.
Taking down the flag from its position atop that pole on State Capitol grounds will not erase one iota of southern heritage…
But it will send a signal that the ideal of equality is even more important.
I believe that the day white southerners can actually embrace that concept and applaud the signal, along with those who are clamouring for it…
that will be a good day for America.
Send the signal and take it down.