All of us ... should remember that no amount of flag-waving, pledging allegiance, or fervent singing of the national anthem is evidence that we are patriotic in the real sense of the word. ...[this]…is not the real measure of a man's patriotism. --Eleanor Roosevelt
I’m an American flag kind of guy. I know that might sound corny, but that’s who I am and reflects a core belief of mine. The flag still means something and stands for timeless ideals and profound values.
The flag I fly hangs from a flagpole attached to the front of my garage. On a breezy day, it flaps in the wind, sometimes opening up to its fullness, with its thirteen alternating red and white stripes for the original colonies, and a square in the upper left corner, deep blue background, with fifty white stars, one for each state.
I fly it on and around Memorial Day, July 4th, and Veterans Day. I fly it on election days too. My flag stands not just for support of our country but dissent too. That’s why I flew my flag upside down last November, post-election, to show my distress at the outcome and fear for the future of the country I love.
And yes, I always stand up with hand over heart at baseball games, cap off, as “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays and I sing the words, sometimes embarrassing my seat mate. I own the forty-eight star flag my father received as a gift from the men on a Navy ship that transported him home from service in the Korean War. Dad was rushing to return back to Boston to attend the funeral of his father who’d died very suddenly of a heart attack. Dad didn’t make it on time. That flag is very precious to me.
The flag’s meaning comes from what virtues it symbolizes. Service to country. Sacrifice for a cause greater than oneself. “Our flag was still there!” the national anthem proclaims. When our forebears fought against kings and tyrants, they refused to give in to tyranny.
The flag means very different things to different people. Some even burn the flag in protest. That right to do so is actually protected free speech under the law . As Supreme Court Justice William Brennan wrote for the majority in the 1989 case Texas v. Johnson, “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.”
We enjoy freedom so expansive that controversial, and unpopular speech is protected. The flag symbolizes that America is a nation of laws, based in the U.S. Constitution. We are not supposed to be a nation ruled by a Capitol storming mob or by any President who might suppose that he is the law unto himself. Laws must finally trump unchecked wannabee kings.
I pray and hope in 2025 that this cornerstone of democracy can still survive.
The flag belongs to every single American, no one left out. It belongs to those protesting the actions of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles. It belongs to the police at those protests and National Guard women and men too. The flag belongs to the tens of thousands of Americans who will protest on June 14th, in “No Kings” rallies across the United States. Even when the full rights symbolized in the flag were and still are denied to many people in the United States, still, it was and is their flag too.
Democracy declares the flag can’t be denied to anyone who calls our nation home.
There will be those who try to limit the flag’s “ownership” to their political party, narrow exclusive ideology, or only to those they judge as “true Americans.” But such rhetoric is always false, the bellicose blustering of some power-hungry despot and his followers. Some wear a flag lapel pin and then use it as some kind of public posing, not so much to actually be patriotic but instead to practice what I’d call performative patriotism. Anybody can chant “USA! USA!” and wrap themselves (sometimes literally) in the flag but real patriotism?
It is seen in what we do and how we live as Americans. Do we contribute to the common good? Pay our fair share of taxes? Volunteer in the community and for the military? Do we care for neighbors who struggle to care for themselves? To me those actions show real patriotism.
I will continue to fly the flag in all times, no matter who is in the Oval Office or in control of Congress. Politicians come and go, rise, and fall, but the flag, since 1777, has stayed and for that I am very thankful.
So, on this June 14th, Flag Day, maybe each of us can consider, if but for a moment, what the flag means to us and what we can do to make our country a more just, merciful, and truly free land.
With no kings and no tyrants.
(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.