Profanity on pro-Trump political flag sparks debate in Washington Township

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com

Profanity on a political flag in support of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign sparked a conversation about the First Amendment at Wednesday’s Washington Township Board of Supervisors meeting.
Supervisor Chuck Yusko said the board received an email Sept. 30 from a resident asking if the township could have a flag at a private Fayette Avenue residence removed. The flag bears Trump’s name and the phrase, “(Expletive) your feelings.” The resident described the flag as “obscene” in the email.
Yusko did not identify the resident who complained about the flag or the flag’s owner.
“Can we make them take that flag down?” Yusko asked Solicitor Jack Purcell.
“Well, you run into some real First Amendment issues if you try to make anybody take just about anything down,” Purcell replied. “When I hear the term obscene, that has a specific legal meaning. Obscenity is something that is sexual in nature, so language is not obscene.
“Courts have held that even the use of the ‘F’ word is constitutionally protected. It goes back to a case in the Vietnam War era where somebody wore, to a courthouse, a jacket that had ‘F’ the draft on it — only it didn’t have F, it had the other three letters. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, ‘that’s a First Amendment free expression.’
“There was even a local case 10 or 15 years ago in Fayette County where it was about obscenities. A police officer cited someone for disorderly conduct for basically just using a string of obscenities and the court said, ‘No, that’s protected.’”
Purcell said the township cannot legally force the resident to stop displaying the flag on private property.
“We cannot police or regulate good taste, good manners or proper etiquette, in my opinion,” Purcell said.
That’s when a township resident voiced his dismay.
“We have school buses that come up this road — elementary, middle school, senior high school — in the morning and they also go back at night,” he said. “You have this sign, your kids are looking at that sign every day, twice a day, three times a day. People go through there and you’ve got these little kids who are going to look at that sign,” said the resident, who didn’t give his name.

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