Marion County, Florida Reverses Ban, Raises Confederate Flag at Government Complex

07 Jul, 2015 by Warner Todd Huston

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As many governments across the south look to pull Confederate flags down from government property, one county in Flirida has made the opposite decision by deciding to return the Confederate flag to its spot outside the county government’s office complex.

In a unanimous decision on Tuesday, officials in Marion County, Florida voted to return the Confederate flag to the government offices in Ocala, Georgia.

Marion County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to put the Confederate flag back up at the county’s government complex.

The flag was removed Thursday and temporarily replaced with a flag with the seal of Marion County.

County officials said the decision to remove the flag last week was in response to growing controversy surrounding the flag following the shooting deaths of nine black men and women at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17. The suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, had posed with a Confederate flag in photos posted on a website that displayed a racist manifesto attributed to him.

After the deadly shootings, Marion County’s interim county administrator, Bill Kauffman, consulted with County Commission Chairman Stan McClain and decided to remove the Confederate flag, which has flown outside the county’s government complex for more than two decades.

Within minutes of Tuesday morning’s vote, the Civil War-era flag was seen flying once again outside the government complex as one of the five national flags which have flown over Florida since European explorers first landed on its shores more than 500 years ago. The other four are Spanish, French, British and American flags.

If the residents don’t like the decision, well, this is a democracy and they can speak up. So far the reaction is apparently not that negative.

(Post corrected. The original post said the state was Georgia, but it is Florida.)