Are Blue Line Flags an Abomination?
American blue line flags are being questioned.
Blue Line Flags Under Fire
Many people want to buy blue line flags, but people are questioning the meaning of the blue line flags and what they represent. This may seem odd if you don’t know the back-story, but allow me to explain.
We’ve been having people tell us, the Blue Lives Matter team, for a while now that we should be selling American Thin Blue Line flags. That way more people can openly show their support for law enforcement.
We’re a group of police officers, not flag makers, so we never really did much with these suggestions besides thank people for their support. Then our official Blue Lives Matter shirt partner, Warrior 12, told us that they had ultra-high-quality American blue line flags for sale.
Heavy-Duty Thin Blue Line Flag From Warrior 12 – $24.99
When they put this up, it sure got a lot of attention, but also from people who weren’t too happy with it. One user pretty much summed up most of the comments:
“I will always support law enforcement but this is a desecration of the American Flag.”
This resulted in quite the internal discussion among those of us at Blue Lives Matter. People seemed split between the two groups.
On one hand, the American Thin Blue Line flag proponents said that it’s not an desecration of the American flag, because it’s a completely different flag. It’s a flag specifically to represent support for American law enforcement. Most people seem to agree, as these flags are becoming more popular than ever and people love flying them side-by-side with American flags.
The other group says that it’s clearly based off of the American flag, because it’s supposed to represent American law enforcement. The American flag should not be altered in appearance; To do so is a violation of US Flag code which states:
The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be fifty stars, white in a blue field.
To them, the American thin blue line flag is an abomination.
We thought that the critics might have a point, and we quickly took down the Facebook post promoting the deal. Unfortunately, by taking the post down so quickly, we didn’t actually get to see how most of our supporters actually felt about the issue.
We’d like to hear what you think about this issue. Should Blue Lives Matter forgo any support for the American Thin Blue Line flags? We want to hear from you. Please let us know what you think on our Facebook page in the comments.
