An attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund said that the city’s plan for returning the Christian flag to the Veteran’s Memorial is a fair compromise.
“This approach should be a reasonable compromise that respects the rights of the citizens of King to honor those who paid the ultimate price to secure our freedoms,” said Joe Infranco, a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz.
The fund is representing the council. Fund attorneys will work with the council for two months — at no cost — to help develop the policy’s details. City officials said that the flag will stay down until the new rules are in place.
The King City Council approved a policy Monday night that eventually would allow a Christian flag to fly again at a memorial at the city’s Central Park as a part of a limited public display of religious flags recognized by the U.S. military.
Members of the Army Chaplain Corps wear four symbols on their uniforms — the Christian cross, the Jewish tablets and Star of David, the Buddhist dharma-chakra and the Muslim crescent, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the U.S. Army.
There are also 41 religious symbols that can be placed on grave markers at Arlington National Cemetery.
The city’s new policy will lay out which flags and symbols would be displayed at the memorial.
The memorial is temporarily closed for maintenance, as crews work to seal small cracks in the memorial’s fountain area, City Manager John Cater said.
The memorial should reopen early next week, once the work is completed, Cater said.
The Alliance Defense Fund is also representing the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners in its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that banned the sectarian prayers at commission meetings. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the county’s case.
The dispute in King began this summer when a veteran complained about the Christian flag being flown at the memorial.
In mid-August, the council and the city attorney received letters from the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
Both groups urged the council to remove the flag, saying that the flag was a violation of the First Amendment.
On Sept. 15, the council voted 3-1 to take down the flag, on the advice of their city attorney.
More than 5,000 people marched and rallied in King on Oct. 23, urging the city council to return the Christian flag to the memorial.
Katherine Parker, the legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said that city officials complied with the U.S. Constitution when they removed the Christian flag from the memorial.
“Whether other options might also be constitutional remains to be seen,” Parker said.
Barry Lynn, the executive director for the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said that the policy the city is considering could be flawed because it is limited to religious flags.
“A policy like that would have the effect of favoring religion over nonreligion, which the Supreme Court has said is a violation of church-state separation,” Lynn said.
jhinton@wsjournal.com
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