Tag Archives: Freedom to Display the American Flag Act

The Flag, Just A Holiday Decoration!

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Writing this blog is beginning to give me hives. I guess I’m just allergic to stupid people.

The self-proclaimed dictator of the Chestnut Place Homeowners Association in Murray, Utah, says she’s tired of looking at American flags and she’s beginning to fine homeowners who display them.

You think I’m making this stuff up? Come on, guys! You know I’m not.

HOA president Lyn Steinbergen says the flag is only a holiday decoration and needs to come down after the ‘holiday.’ Mz. Steinbergen, you’re obviously an ignoramus when it comes to knowledge about the American flag and whether or not the display of the flag is covered under multiple state and Supreme Court decisions. Yes, I’m prejudiced against your mindless stance because I have a number of family members who gave their lives for that flag. They also gave their lives to protect your right to be an idiot. If you honestly think it’s merely a holiday decoration then I brand you a brainless neighborhood ditz who deserves to be recalled as soon as enough signatures are collected.

(link to story in the Washington Times)

Additional note: Deborah Goonan is so sharp. She’s always miles ahead of me on updates.

(update on flag dispute)

 

 

Homeowner Associations a Social Disease?

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Just like a social disease that keeps coming back, some Homeowner Associations never let a patsy out of their grip.

The latest “sucker” is some poor fellow in The Times Condominium At Sweetwater Del Webb Master Homeowner’s Association (Whew! Where do these names come from?)

Anyway, resident Larry Murphree thought he knew what was meant when GW Bush signed the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act” in July of 2006. Muphree planted two little flags in flower pots outside the door of his condominium.

Along comes the HOA and starts whacking him with fines of a hundred bucks a day, liens, threats of lawsuit and foreclosure.

Murphree is now in federal court in Jacksonville, Florida. He notes that the flag act specifically says “A condominium association… may not adopt or enforce any policy, or enter into any agreement, that would restrict or prevent a member of the association from displaying the flag of the United States on residential property within the association with respect to which such member has a separate ownership interest or a right to exclusive possession or use.” Hmmm. Sounds moderately clear.

Whichever way it goes, Murphree will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The HOA will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The stature and marketability of the neighborhood will fall.  The lawyers, of course, will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. It always seems to come back to that, doesn’t it?  The lawyers. They just keep coming back.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association