Posted on 07/27/2005 4:48:39 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Stoughton (WI) police are investigating the theft and mutilation of a rainbow flag from the yard of a lesbian couple, but investigators are not calling the incident a hate crime.
The nylon flag was taken either late Friday or early Saturday from outside the home of Margaret Funk and Lou Meade.
"The pole was broken, the flag was shredded and it looked like they attempted to set it on fire," Funk said.
The flag symbolizes tolerance and diversity.
Lt. Pat Conlin of the Stoughton Police Department said there is no evidence that the vandalism was a hate crime. He noted that an American flag was stolen in the same area two days later.
Funk said when she discovered the flag was missing she handed out a memo to her neighbors asking them to keep an eye out for it. One of those neighbors eventually found the mutilated flag.
Conlin said a beer can was found near the flag.
Funk said the neighbors are not accustomed to problems.
"They're shocked," she said.
Funk and Meade have lived in Stoughton for about a year, and this is the first time they've encountered hostility.
"This is a wonderful neighborhood," she said. "We love living in Stoughton. It's very quiet."
""The pole was broken, the flag was shredded and it looked like they attempted to set it on fire," Funk said. The flag symbolizes tolerance and diversity."
Aside from the minor issue of theft, that certainly sounds like a clear cut case of Constitutionally protected freedom of expression to me. Ain't freedom grand?
Oh what will we do!!??!!
Chill out. Most people here overlook the theft and concentrate on the delicious irony of the left getting a taste of their own medicine. It's just that simple. Nobody but leftist morons at DUh are going to make a federal case out of this thread.
At the center of this teapot tempest is something that really rankles folks and NEVER is addressed...something like this crap: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1451999/posts
IMHO, People have every right to be pissed. Cut them some slack and try to understand the human side of this instead of policing everyone's morality.
This isn't actually directed at an individual poster. It would be a general post had the space been provided.
Threads such as this are as hateful and unreasonable as anything you would expect to see on DU. Some applauding theft and vandalism, some trying to link these women to the keying of cars (where did THAT come from?), and most expressing a sick joy that something bad happened in the life of two women you don't even know.
Just a reminder, the post-election stats say a quarter of homosexuals voted republican in the last election. 2004 was a close enough election that this was important to the candidates, if not to you. Broad unthinking hostility like we see here is unhelpful, if not suicidal.
If you're taking the "moral high road," your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to make these same moralizing comments on all homosexual-related threads by the end of the day. You can start here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1452281/posts
And when you're done reading and digesting every thread, see if you can still deny the true agenda of the Homosexual Party and why it bothers some of us to the extent that it does.
Here's to diversity! Enjoy! :)
Perhaps there new flag could be made of carpet.
"The flag symbolizes tolerance and diversity. "
It symbolizes perversion and depravity. Also filth and pestilential diseases.
You got that right. It also sybolizes abomination toward GOD.
For the record, I pulled a few really dumb stunts as a teenager. One of my worst was putting a swastika (in soap) on a Jewish neighbor's window on Halloween (I was pissed because they weren't handing out any candy). I felt particular remorse during my visits to Flossenburg and Dachau when I was stationed in Germany.
I greatly regret the errors of my younger days, and am trying to teach my children to be better than me.
I'm afraid that the incident in WI is just another example of "collateral damage" in the Great Culture War taking place in our society. Here "the left" automatically assumes this is a heinous hate crime, while demanding tolerance from "the right", especially in the War on Terror, and the need to "understand" the conditions that are creating terrorists.
My house was TP'ed a few weeks ago, and it was carried out haphazardly. Whoever did it really did a lousy job: less than two rolls of paper were strewn about my foliage in front. Did I for one moment think that I was targeted by a loony leftist? Heck no!!!
All I'm trying to say that we all need to take a deep breath before we start crying "hate crime", "wolf", etc.
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