What Mike Pompeo forgot about the flag

It was also a small and petty thing to do.

His staff was quick to defend the decision.

How Trump is abandoning LGBTQ people over pride flags

"The secretary has the position," said Pompeo's spokeswoman, "as it relates to the flag pole, that only the American flag should be flown there."

Except, let's be honest. That's not what this is about. This is about Pompeo's personal beliefs -- he's called the marriage equality ruling by the Supreme Court a "shocking abuse of power" -- clashing with the better, sounder judgement of his State Department employees. He wasn't willing to buck all that institutional wisdom and prohibit every measure of public support for the LGBTQ community, so he did this instead.

And rather than just admit that Pride Month offended both his sensibility and many of the people who elected him to the Congress in the first place, he wrapped his decision up in the good-ol' Stars and Stripes. He made it about the flag.

Since Friday is Flag Day, we ought to spend a couple minutes thinking about that.

First off, nothing in official flag protocol prohibits the flying of the Pride flag beneath that of the US flag. It's common practice to fly other flags on the same pole with the American flag, so long as the latter flies at the very top. Taking Pompeo's position to the extreme would mean even US state flags could not be so displayed. We know that's not going to happen, and he never intended such.

Secondly, and much more critically, allowing the Pride flag to be flown beneath Old Glory sends a powerful message to those who see it that we stand for equality -- all manner of equality. It says we accept people for who they are and how they contribute to society, no matter whom and how they love.

Pompeo's supporters may say he still supports Pride Month because he's allowing the flag to be displayed in other ways. A State Department official told me they are happy our embassies are finding other ways to celebrate and commemorate. Maybe so. But by banning this particular way of displaying the Pride flag, Pompeo is telling the world that our acceptance of fellow human beings, our rejection of persecution and prejudice, and our advocacy of human rights ... well, has its limits.

I can't think of too many more disheartening messages to send to people, especially now. Under President Donald Trump, we've lost a lot of credibility around the world. Allies don't follow our lead anymore. The President has us retrenching into something akin to Fortress America, consumed by fear, distrustful of the world around us. Foreign diplomats I speak to say they don't even know what the United States stands for anymore.

Seems to me we ought to at least stand for personal dignity.

This whole sordid episode reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite novels, "The Sand Pebbles." The young commanding officer of a US Navy gunboat deployed to the Far East at the turn of the 20th century gathers his small crew to deliver a speech on Flag Day.

America "is more than marks on a map," he says. "America is a living structure of human lives, of all the American lives that ever were and ever will be ... one American life from birth to death is like a single fiber. Each one is spun into the yarn of a family and strand of a home town and the rope of a home state. The states are spun into the great, unending, unbreakable cable that is America."

I know it's a fanciful analogy from a piece of fiction that doesn't exactly paint the Navy in the best of lights when it comes to cultural sensitivity. But it's still a worthy comparison, an apt one. We really all are bound together as in a cable, dependent upon one another, stronger and more resilient when we combine our intellect, resources and talents -- our diverse threads -- to advance our interests and demonstrate our values around the world.

We haven't exactly been doing a great job demonstrating that sort of unity of late. I get it. We're a pretty divided country these days. And Pompeo's decision, however petty, isn't all by itself going to spur our national demise. But it also isn't doing anything to prove that America is something more than just a collection of stars and stripes on fabric, more than just "marks on a map." It's not doing anything to prove that, at the very least, we respect one another.

The American flag -- the one I sailed and served under -- represents the best aspects of our democracy: individual liberty and national purpose. Out of the many, one ... as it were.

Pompeo's decision didn't honor that ideal. Not at all. And much as he'd like to think so, he didn't honor our flag, either.

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