Angry conservatives still smarting from the national movement against the Confederate flag are mounting an online campaign to ban the LGBT pride flag after Wednesday's murder of two Virginia TV journalists.
They argue that because disgruntled employee turned murderer Vester Lee Flanagan was gay, the rainbow flag is now a symbol of hate, so it must be banned like the Confederate flag has been banned from most public and government property.
In a world devoid of history or logic, the proposition could make a certain kind of sense. After years of simmering quietly, the movement to ban the Confederate flag boiled over when white shooter Dylann Roof killed 9 parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina earlier this summer.
Roof took many photos of himself brandishing weapons and symbols of white supremacy, including the battle flag of the secessionist slave states. The Confederate flag was deliberately coopted by anti-integration southerners in the 1960s as a white supremacist banner.
If one takes into account the staggering amount of violence that has been meted out on black bodies in the name of the values that flag represents, however, then weighs it against one deranged shooter who belonged to no organized movement, the nascent #TakeItDown movement among conservatives seems pretty much like the petty grudge-mongering tantrum that it is.
Let's start with perennial self-declared victim Ben Shapiro:
"In a raid on the apartment on Wednesday, police reportedly confiscated a gay pride flag." #TakeItDown http://t.co/JpKh0dZWzC— Ben Shapiro (@Ben Shapiro)1440681541.0
The moaning quickly spread:
The shooter was gay? Ban the rainbow #FlagofHate #racism #takeitdown #VirginiaShooting @ebay @Etsy @amazon http://t.co/ejsziwvz2a— Tim Kenney (@Tim Kenney)1440634804.0
Hateful flag! #TakeItDown "In a raid on the apartment on Wednesday, police reportedly confiscated a gay pride flag." #BryceWilliams #WDBJ— Dr. NativeOne 🇺🇸 (@Dr. NativeOne 🇺🇸)1440684177.0
@benshapiro how long must we see this MURDER FLAG of HATE everywhere we go? How many more heteros need to die before we #TakeItDown? #SJWs— Rear Admiral Gate (@Rear Admiral Gate)1440682047.0