• Tennessee teen: I was banned from prom over Confederate flag dress

    "I just thought it was cool," said Texanna Edwards of the confederate flag dress that got her banned from her senior prom. WMC-TV's Janice Broach reports.

    By NBC News and news services

    MEMPHIS – A high school senior from West Tennessee says she was banned from attending her prom because her dress resembled a Confederate battle flag, WMC-TV in Memphis reported.


    "It wasn't done to offend anybody," Texanna Edwards, 18, told the NBC station. "It was done just for the sole fact that I just wanted a rebel flag dress because I thought it was cool."

    But officials at Gibson County High School officials in Dyer, Tenn., did not agree with her coolness factor. Principal James Hughes declined comment to WMC.

    "He told us y'all have to leave because the dress is inappropriate," Edwards said. She said that last year she wore a camouflage dress to the prom without any objection.

    She said she doesn't understand why the dress was banned because students in school wear rebel flag shirts, hats and belt buckles.

    "I don't see the point of not letting someone in their one and only prom, senior prom. The year they graduate. Doesn't represent anything bad," student Cody Beasley told WMC-TV.

    Gibson County Special School District Superintendent Eddie Pruett, however, said a teacher had warned Edwards months ago that the dress might be inappropriate, The Associated Press reported. Pruett said there have been racial tensions at the school in recent years and the high school principal worried the dress could have caused more, according to the AP.

    This story includes reporting from WMC-TV's Janice Broach.

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  • $1,500 to lower flag to half-staff? Gay rights group doesn't want to pay

    By Jim Gold, msnbc.com

    Getting two flags flown at half-staff for a day could cost close to $1,500 in San Francisco.


    And the group Gays Without Borders is worried it may have to foot that bill for a ceremony on May 17, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, or IDAHO, says gay rights blogger and activist Michael Petrelis.

    At the group’s request, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last month approved flying the U.S. and U.N. flags at the city’s United Nations Plaza at half-staff for 24 hours.

    But Petrelis said the city Public Works Department told him its cost would be $1,467.90.

    The department confirmed to msnbc.com on Tuesday that in a deal with unions, lowering the flags will take two station engineers paid for four hours each at $90 an hour -- or up to $135 an hour nights and weekends with overtime – and another four hours to raise them again. That’s up to $1,080. Where the rest of the cost that Petrelis cited came from was unclear.

    However, that does not necessarily mean the group will be billed for the service, a department spokesperson said.

    While the formal half-staff order came to the department through the Board of Supervisors, this is the first time to her knowledge any private group had submitted a flag-lowering request. So the city is working out how to proceed. 

    “We are willing to respect the day and of course the flags will be lowered,” Gloria Chan, department spokeswoman, told msnbc.com.

    Chan said details of any ceremonies that Petrelis and his group want to perform in conjunction with the flags have yet to be worked out.

    She also said protocols with respect to the U.S. flag also had to be worked out.

    The Flag Code allows only for the president or state governors to order the flying of U.S. flags at half-staff.

    May 17 marks the day in 1990 that the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. The San Francisco resolution notes that Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Luxemburg and Brazil recognize IDAHO.

    “I mean, c’mon,” Petrelis said, according to the San Francisco Examiner. “If San Francisco, of all cities, can’t find a way to lower two flags for 24 hours to honor dead gay people from around the world, what does that say about San Francisco?”

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  • Obama's image on American flag angers vets

    A Stars and Stripes flag featuring a portrait of President Barack Obama.

    By msnbc.com news services

    A group of veterans angered by an American flag bearing the image of President Barack Obama descended on the local Democratic party headquarters in central Florida and demanded it be taken down.


    It was, but not before heated words were exchanged between the two sides, media reports say.

     

    Obama’s face filled the blue-and-stars section of the flag, which was flying underneath the traditional American one on a flagpole at the Lake County Democratic Party headquarters.

    "It's a cult of personality to show his face, like Stalin or Mao," John Masterjohn, a former Marine and retired schoolteacher from Leesburg, told the Orlando Sentinel. "It's despicable. They don't realize how sick they are."

    The Obama flag had been flying two months before it was noticed by Leesburg veteran Jim Bradford, who spotted it over the weekend and then sent pictures of it to friends and veterans groups.

    "When I saw the picture on the flag, I thought this is wrong," he told the Daily Commercial. "I really hate seeing the flag not being respected, and to me this was not respectful."

    He added that the issue wasn’t about politics: "I really don't care what party it is. If it had been a picture of Romney on the flag, I would have done the same thing."

    A small group of veterans went to the office Tuesday afternoon and demanded it be removed – or they would take it down themselves. They alleged it was in violation of the federal flag code, though altering an American flag doesn't constitute a crime, Jim Lake, an adjunct professor at the Stetson University College of Law in Tampa, told the Sentinel.

    "For good reason, these folks want to encourage respect for the flag, and while such an alteration may be considered disrespectful, the federal government doesn't allow penalties against those who disrespect the flag," Lake said.

    The federal flag code is “just standards on how civilians might use the flag," he said, noting that the Supreme Court has ruled that those who burn or intentionally desecrate the flag are protected by the First Amendment.

    Nancy Hurlbert, chairwoman of the local Democratic party, told the group that they could not remove the flag, which was given as a gift: "We are proud of our president, we're proud of the United States, and we felt it was time to display that."

    She eventually took it down after Don Van Beck, executive director of the Veterans Memorial and a Korean War veteran, read a portion of the federal flag code that the article “should never have placed upon it or any part of it, any marks, insignia, letters, words, figures, designs, picture or drawings of any nature."

    "If somebody had just called ahead of time, we could have avoided all of this," Hurlbert said, according to the Daily Commercial.

    Van Beck said he was “sorry it had to come to this.”

    “ ... You don't desecrate the flag, especially for the veterans who fought the wars and died for it. In dictatorships, they have a picture of their dictator on some of the flags, but we haven't arrived at having a dictator, yet."

    Conservatives took to social media to decry the flag, a reproduction of which is selling on ebay for $27.

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