North Carolina Family Policy Council
In a unanimous vote the city council in King, North Carolina voted in favor of a new policy that will allow local citizens to choose a religious flag to display at the local Veteran’s Memorial on a rotating basis. The council approved the “limited public forum” policy, which was crafted with the assistance of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), at its December 6 meeting. Under the policy, the residents of King can submit applications to the city, requesting that a specific religious flag be flown to honor a veteran in their family. Residents can choose from among 41 religious and non-religious symbols for flags that are approved by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, including the Christian cross, and symbols representing Atheism and Humanism. The city will then use a lottery system to randomly select residents from the list of applicants. Flags will fly for one week at a time. The policy will take effect January 1, 2011.
As we previously reported, the city council voted in August to remove the Christian flag from the flag display at the Veteran’s Memorial in King, after receiving threatening letters from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. The removal of the Christian flag led to a groundswell of opposition from local citizens, including many veterans. The support for the flag included a rally attended by 5,000 people, and the creation of a “Christian Flag-King” Facebook page with over 40,000 members.
The limited public forum policy, and the two-page application for local residents to use to request the display of a specific religious flag to honor a family veteran are available at the city of King’s website under “Public Notices.”
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This story was used by permission of the North Carolina Family Policy Council.