Unflagging Religion

Should the death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday be an occasion for Americans to lower their flags as a gesture of patriotic mourning? Few would say so, but New Hampshire's archconservative Governor Meldrim Thomson Jr. thinks otherwise. Last week, as he has in two previous Holy Weeks, Thomson ordered all flags on public buildings lowered as a sign of recognition that "the moral grandeur and strength of Christianity [is] the bulwark against the forces of destructive ideologies."

This time five clergymen, backed by the New Hampshire American Civil Liberties Union, decided it was time to call a halt. They sued Thomson on the grounds that his edict was unconstitutional, and U.S. District Judge Walter Jay Skinner agreed. Thomson could lower the flags, Skinner ruled, only if he proclaimed a secular reason for doing so. Next day, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit threw out Skinner's injunction. "A great victory," said Thomson, as he ordered all official flags--there are about 100 in the state--to half-staff. Thomson said he would personally haul down the flag at the State House.

On Good Friday morning, all of the flags were indeed lowered, but the A.C.L.U. pursued the issue to Washington, where the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 that Thomson should cease and desist. Up went the flags. Thomson then issued a "nonreligious" decree asking that the flags be lowered because of the '"historical impact on Western civilization of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ." He sent his lawyers back to Judge Skinner to see if that would be legal, but before Judge Skinner could rule, the sun set on Thomson's maneuverings.

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