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Proposed legislation would ask other states to remove their Confederate flags
TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 27, 2015
In the wake of renewed debate over the Confederate flag, a pair of Ohio senators have drafted a resolution focused on the controversial symbol.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 7 would urge the powers of the governments that continue to make issuances containing the flag to discontinue this practice and urge the powers of the governments that fly the Confederate flag or any flag containing its imagery on public property to remove the flags in question.
The resolution, jointly sponsored by Sens. Charleta Tavares, D-Bexley, and Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, was filed into the legislature Monday.
The measure opens by acknowledging the nine victims of the June 17 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C and states that “events connected with this tragedy have raised questions about the rebel flag as a suitable element in public displays of honor.”
“The rebel flag is a symbol of the treasonous rebellion against the United States of America and the rebellion memorialized by the rebel flag was for the expressed purpose of preserving a system of enslavement that is unconstitutional and was a violation of the inalienable rights endowed upon all people by the creator,” the resolution reads.
SCR 7 states that the flag is a “symbol of oppression and racial hatred rooted in the legacy of African-American enslavement.”
“The rebel flag remains a symbol of racial oppression and violence, even after the emancipation of slaves, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement,” the measure says.
The resolution goes on to note that Ohio citizens were major contributors to the Underground Railroad and that Ohio was a major contributor in the Union’s Civil War victory.
While “citizens of Ohio have made major contributions to the assurance of civil rights to all citizens of the United States of America,” five states still fly flags containing imagery from the Confederate flag and nine states issue license plates containing its imagery.
In addition to calling on governments to stop flying the flag on public property, SCR 7 calls for state flags that include imagery derived from the Confederate flag to be redesigned.
The resolution also requests that retailers across Ohio stop selling merchandise bearing the Confederate flag.
SCR 7 is awaiting a committee assignment.
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