Racists to fly their flag in Homestead

For some reason, Florida seems to be a magnet for the slack-jawed racist community and their ubiquitous Confederate battle flags. Whether it's the despicable attempts to garner state sanction for their hate through a proposed (but, fortunately, not yet produced) Confederate flag license plate or the world's largest Confederate flag welcoming visitors to the Tampa area, America's Wang™ has proven to be a fertile breeding ground for the hate group known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

After their attempts to march in a Veterans' Day parade in Palm Beach County last year ended with the cancellation of the parade, SCV's white separatists took their flag to Homestead, angering the Miami-Dade chapter of the NAACP. This year, they're likely to do it again, because parade organizers have decided they're powerless to stop it.

Jeffrey Wander, chairman of the military affairs committee of the Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce that plans the parade, said Thursday that his group is hoping controversy will be avoided by the Confederate group keeping the flag away.

"We are going to run the parade the way we've been running it," Wander said.

"We can't take a position on this. But we hope the Sons of Confederate Veterans don't bring the battle flag."

Well, yeah, I hope the morons protesting the president's speech next week suddenly see that they're complete idiots, too, but I'm not holding my breath.

Of course you can take a position on this, Mr. Wander! Where are your balls? Even if the First Amendment protects the racists' right to display their symbol of hate (and I think I can make a cogent argument that the First Amendment doesn't even apply here*), you can take a stand as the Chamber of Commerce of an enlightened community in the year 2009 and say that while the SCV may have a right to march, your organization does not support nor condone their beliefs. But, no, I guess you'd rather hide behind the First Amendment and wash your hands of the whole mess ...

And as a result, it's like to get worse before it gets better:

For those who wanted to bar the flag, the decision represented a big step backward. It also signaled that mediation with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Miami-Dade Community Relations Board may have come to an end.

"This is a very sad day for our community," said Pat Mellerson, former vice chair of the Homestead/Florida City Human Relations Board and a business owner in Homestead. "We just don't need to have any conflict."

The Rev. Jimmie Williams, vice president of PULSE, a civil rights group, said protests, boycotts and election changes were back on the table now.

"Everything we worked so hard for has been in vain," he said.

Heckuva job, Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce. You could have done something truly meaningful here, even without banning the yokels from their public display of ignorance. But you didn't. I do hope you won't regret that.

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* Generally, the First Amendment only applies to government action; that is why, for example, private clubs may discriminate freely. It may be that something like a parade permit by the city or county constitutes sufficient government action in this instance to bring the First Amendment into play, even if the parade is privately organized and sponsored, but if you want to do the legal research on that issue yourself, be my guest ... you can even post your findings in the comments below.