Last week, Auburn City Council member Arthur Dowdell, representative for Ward 1, removed some Confederate flags placed on the graves of Confederate soldiers by the United Daughters of Confederacy in celebration of Confederate Memorial Day, according to the Opelika-Auburn News.
You can't see it, but we're all wincing right now.
Come on now, sir.
Regardless of what people think about that flag, and many of us here on staff are not fans of it ourselves, it is wrong to mess with people's gravesites.
It is understandable you were angered by the display, people have the right to get angry about anything, but the way you handled the situation is not going to recruit people to be sympathetic to your viewpoint.
While wading through the Web comments on the Opelika-Auburn News' Web site, the comments that ring most true are the ones about government officials believing they are above the law.
As a leader in your community, you should know there are avenues people can take when they have an issue with something on display in a public space, and when you lost your cool, you must have forgotten that.
Your idea to officially standardize decorations allowed in cemeteries is a better move and probably would have been more easily accepted had you not rallied people against you beforehand.
There is a polldaddy.com poll asking the question "Was Auburn city councilman Arthur Dowdell wrong for taking Confederate Flags off of the graves of Confederate soldiers at Pine Hill Cemetery?"
The current results are 97 percent say "yes," 3 percent say "no."
Ouch.
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