and the 911 Atrocities themselves, are absolutely, positively acceptable to these people.
Posted on 12/30/2003 5:44:05 AM PST by WKB
JACKSON, Miss. -- The U.S. Supreme Court will discuss Jan. 9 whether to hear arguments in a case in which a Muslim claimed the Confederate battle emblem in Mississippi's flag is actually a Christian symbol.
Lower federal courts had rejected John Ellis Briggs' argument that the Mississippi flag contains the St. Andrew's Cross and that the symbol represents state endorsement of a particular religion.
Briggs' lawsuit seeks punitive damages of up to $77 million. It also seeks to have the symbol "removed from display in public places."
Since 1894, Mississippi's flag has contained the Confederate battle emblem, a blue X with 13 whites stars over a field of red. Experts differ on whether the X in the Confederate battle emblem is the St. Andrew's Cross.
David Sansing, professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi, said Monday that people have claimed erroneously for years that the cross is the St. Andrew's Cross.
"What is in the Confederate battle flag is a blue saltier. The St. Andrew's Cross is a white diagonal cross on a blue field," Sansing said. "The man who designed the (Confederate battle) flag makes no reference to the St. Andrew's Cross."
Sansing said the designer of the flag described it to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard as a blue saltier on a red field with one star for each of the 13 Southern states.
Sansing said the St. Andrew's Cross dates back to the Middle Ages and represents the X-shaped cross on which the apostle Andrew was crucified. Andrew was the patron saint of Scotland. The St. Andrew's Cross is Scotland's national flag.
"So, he's (Briggs) wrong to begin with. It's not a Christian symbol," Sansing said.
Briggs filed suit in federal court in Gulfport in 2001. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2002. Briggs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled against him in June.
The 5th Circuit said it could not accept that "every X, or every X the straight-line connection of whose four points would form a square, is predominantly a religious symbol."
Appeals Judge Will Garwood, writing for himself and Judges E. Grady Jolly and Jerry E. Smith, said it was clear that a community's display of the flag was not an endorsement of religion.
Garwood said the debate over the flying of the Confederate battle flag, or its being a part of a state flag, has centered on its symbolism of the Confederacy and to what extent the symbol extolled or excused slavery.
"None of this concerns any religious symbolism related to any presence of the St. Andrews Cross in the flag," Garwood wrote.
Garwood said that in 1894 -- and in 2001, when voters declined to change the flag -- the Mississippi flag included the canton corner of identical design that was created by Confederate generals in 1861. He said the design was used by Confederate forces throughout the Civil War and became well known, at least throughout the South.
Garwood said those decisions had no religious intent.
Yep, great plan. Piss off everyone that just recently voted to defended that very flag.
Muslims aren't going to be very popular down south really soon now....
Here is a pic of how it should be flown.
They tried something similar about two years ago. Moslem postal and police employees complained mightily of having to wear the (silver or gold) royal badge on their caps ... because the badge includes the image of the royal scepter, which is topped with a (tiny) cross. The cross itself, on the badge, was about the size of the head of a match but no matter, the Moslems in uniformed civil service bleated mightily about it. (It's worth noting that, for more than a century, there were Jewish employees in those uniformed services and, if any of them ever quibbled about the badge, nobody can recall it).
The British govt almost changed the badge to accomodate the Moslems but met with really loud public opposition. It may yet happen.
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