A fire department in Missouri has taken down a Christian flag from its station after a liberal atheist group sent a legal demand letter calling for the flag’s removal.
The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation recently demanded that the Diamond Fire Department take down a Christian flag located outside of its station building.
A spokesperson for the Diamond Area Fire Protection District (DAFPD) told The Christian Post on Wednesday morning that the flag had been taken down, adding that they “respectfully decline answering any other questions.”
Shortly after sending this response to CP, the DAFPD posted to their official Facebook page that the flag “has been taken down in compliance with constitutional law.”
The Christian flag is a banner that is mostly white, with a blue square in the upper left-hand corner that has a red cross inside of it. The flag is displayed in many American churches.
Last week, FFRF staff attorney Samantha Lawrence sent a demand letter to Diamond Fire Chief Rebecca Dunn regarding the flag’s display, saying they received a report from an unnamed individual who saw the flag and believed it “feels exclusionary” to them.
“The Christian flag, despite its benign origins, has unfortunately become heavily associated with white Christian nationalism and the January 6, 2021 insurrection,” FFRF claimed. “By flying the Christian flag on public property, the Department is signaling official favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity over all other faiths.”
In May 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the case of Harold Shurtleff, et al. v. Boston, MA, et al., that Boston officials could not prohibit a group from flying a Christian flag at city hall.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion, concluding that “the First Amendment prevents [the government] from discriminating against speakers based on their viewpoint.”
“We conclude that, on balance, Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech,” Breyer ruled. “That means, in turn, that Boston’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution raise their flag based on its religious viewpoint ‘abridg[ed]’ their ‘freedom of speech.’”
FFRF contrasted the situation, arguing that, unlike in Boston, the fire station display “suggests that the Department is controlling and choosing the flags displayed outside of its building, making the flags government speech.”
“In contrast to Shurtleff, it seems that the Department owns and controls the flags outside of its building, meaning the flag display is government speech,” FFRF added, “and the Department may not use its speech to voice official approval for one religion over all others.”
