Imagine, telling men and women who fought for our nation or whose sons and daughters gave their lives and limbs for our great country, that saying the pledge of allegiance is like saluting Hitler. One senior center in Washington state just pulled such a shenanigan, until the commander of a local American Legion post stepped in to defend their right to salute the American flag—and then he was arrested.
According to the American Mirror – Officials at the Mullis Community Senior Center on San Juan Island in Washington state recently banned members from saying their traditional prayer and Pledge of Allegiance before lunch, forcing them to huddle in the corner around their own flag to pay tribute to American freedom.
But a subsequent crackdown to enforce the ban has reportedly resulted in members of the local American Legion arrested for trespassing with American flags, as well as reports of senior center staff roughing up elderly members who insist on reciting the pledge.
Daven Holzer, commander of the American Legion Post 163, told KIRO his organization was contacted by a group of seniors who wanted help putting on the pledge after officials ended the tradition. Legion members organized the optional pledge for folks who wanted to participate, he said, but it’s only escalated tensions at the taxpayer-funded facility.
“They wrote a new rule into their house rules stating that nobody could do this without the first prior coordination through them, so they took it upon themselves simply as their board and rewrote the rules for the senior center,” Holzer explained.
Legion members held an optional pledge that was “received greatly by the members” but it apparently didn’t sit well with the director of the senior center, who allegedly compared the Pledge of Allegiance to a Nazi salute.
Despite the pleas, American Legion Sergeant-at-Arms Shannon Plummer told KIRO the center has called the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office on Legion members helping to facilitate the banned pledge and had them arrested for trespassing.
“It’s amazing the amount of people who enjoy the liberties of this country, but they don’t want to have to go ahead and produce any of the work that those liberties entitle you to,” Plummer said.
Center officials ignored a request for comment on the situation from KIRO, and haven’t appeared to have addressed the controversy on its Facebook page.
Several folks have visited the page, however, and typed out the Pledge of Allegiance in all caps or posted pictures of the American flag in the comments of posts about nature photos and the weather.
What do you think about this story? Is there anything more unAmerican than banning American citizens from honoring the flag that represents the greatest nation in the world? Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
