Tulsa, Oklahoma – If you thought a CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) float in the Veteran’s Day Parade was a problem, that’s not the only controversy the Tulsa Parade Committee has become embroiled in: they also turned away a group that wanted to fly the Confederate Flags on their float in the parade.
Confederate Veterans Lives Matter wanted to have their float in the parade to showcase the Confederate veterans, and allow them to wave their flags. But the Parade organizers said no, and refused to allow them to participate, citing some rule violations. The group called it “unfair” and plans to file a discrimination complaint.
Newson6 reported,
First, the group tried to submit an application merely a week before the parade, much too late. On top of that, the committee said it does not allow any group that pushes its own personal agenda, and it believes “Confederate Veterans Lives Matter” is a political message in itself.
They don’t allow any group that pushes its own personal agenda? What do they think CAIR is doing?
Confederate veterans and benefits
A 1958 law gave all Civil War Veterans, their spouses and children eligibility for Federal Pensions. Federal law also gives Confederate veterans the right to be buried in national cemeteries and have tax-payer funded headstones the same as Union Soldiers. The last spouse of a Civil War veteran reportedly died in 2003, and the last surviving Civil War veteran is said to have died in 1956.
Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor. And while, when those graves were made, we differed widely about the future of this government, those differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms; and the time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers.
The Cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act, and if it needed further justification, it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in the year just past by the sons and grandsons of these (Spanish American War veterans)…
Unity, honor, respect is missing today
McKinley called for recognition of both sides of the Civil War Soldiers, because he viewed them all as Americans. That recognition came in the early 1930’s as Confederate veterans began to receive some benefits. But the actual law did not come in to play until 1958.
The Confederate Lives Matter group formed just after South Carolina banned the Confederate Battle Flag this summer.
Southerners are deeply patriotic, but they also care about their heritage- and Confederate veterans were both black and white. But it’s not politically correct, of course. Political correctness divides, it does not bring unity or understanding. It points out our differences, not our common strengths.
“What a glorious future awaits us if united, wisely, and bravely we face the new problems now pressing upon us, determined to solve them for right and humanity.” President William McKinley, December 14, 1898