I’m not making this up
The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 9 will discuss whether to hear arguments in a case in which a Muslim sued Mississippi over the Confederate battle emblem in the state flag. Lower federal courts had rejected John Ellis Briggs’ argument that the Mississippi flag contains a Christian symbol - the St. Andrew’s Cross - and that the symbol represents state endorsement of a particular religion. Briggs’ lawsuit seeks punitive damages of up to $77.77 million. It also seeks to have the symbol "removed from display in public places."
| He's gonna sue the Brits next, so you better watch out, Tony and Bulldog... |
Since 1894, Mississippi’s flag has contained the Confederate battle emblem, a blue X with 13 whites stars over a field of red. Experts differ on whether the X in the Confederate battle emblem is the St. Andrew’s Cross.
| It could also be an X, but that doesn't matter. John Ellis Briggs is gonna sue Campbell's because of that alphabet soup... |
David Sansing, professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi, said Monday what people have claimed for years is the St. Andrew’s Cross is not.
| "They just think it is, but I know better..." |
"What is in the Confederate battle flag is a blue saltier. The St. Andrew’s Cross is a white diagonal cross on a blue field," Sansing said. "The man who designed the (Confederate battle) flag makes no reference to the St. Andrew’s Cross." Sansing said the designer of the flag described it to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard as a blue saltier on a red field with one star for each of the 13 Southern states.
"So what's a blue saltier, perfessor?"
"Its' a... ummm... St. Andrew's cross." |
Sansing said the St. Andrew’s Cross dates back to the Middle Ages and represents the X-shaped cross on which the apostle Andrew was crucified. Andrew was the patron saint of Scotland. The St. Andrew’s Cross is Scotland’s national flag. "So, he’s (Briggs) wrong to begin with. It’s not a Christian symbol," Sansing said.
| "St. Andrew, and this is not generally known, was actually a Buddhist..." |
Briggs filed suit in federal court in Gulfport in 2001. A federal judge squirted coffee out his nose and then dismissed the lawsuit in 2002. Briggs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had him beaten with a stick and thrown out of their courtoom ruled against him in June. The 5th Circuit said it could not accept that "every X, or every X the straight-line connection of whose four points would form a square, is predominantly a religious symbol." Appeals Judge Will Garwood, writing for himself and Judges E. Grady Jolly and Jerry E. Smith, said it was clear that a community’s display of the flag was not an endorsement of religion. Garwood said the debate over the flying of the Confederate battle flag, or its being a part of a state flag, has centered on its symbolism of the Confederacy and to what extent the symbol extolled or excused slavery. "None of this concerns any religious symbolism related to any presence of the St. Andrews Cross in the flag," Garwood wrote.
| "Bailiff! Beat him up and throw him out!" |
Garwood said that in 1894 - and in 2001, when voters declined to change the flag - the Mississippi flag included the canton corner of identical design that was created by Confederate generals in 1861. He said the design was used by Confederate forces throughout the Civil War and became well known, at least throughout the South. Garwood said those decisions had no religious intent. |