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Editorial: Right call on state Senate seal

 
Published Oct. 23, 2015

Florida senators wisely voted this week to remove the Confederate flag from the official Senate seal. The controversial flag is a divisive symbol that offends so many Floridians, and it should not hold a place of honor on any modern-day official insignia.

Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, requested in June that the Senate Rules Committee re-examine the Senate seal. Since 1972, the Confederate flag has been part of the seal, which also includes banners representing the United States, France, Great Britain and Spain — all flags that have flown over Florida. The rules committee voted in early October to remove the Confederate flag and replace it with Florida's state flag. The full Senate affirmed the committee's recommendation earlier this week. It was the right call.

Nine African-American worshipers in a South Carolina church shouldn't have had to die — killed by a man who was photographed with a Confederate flag — for the nation to revisit the place of Confederate symbols in modern culture. The symbols represent heritage and pride for some but also are hurtful to many African-Americans. The Senate's decision respectfully acknowledges African-Americans' pain and relegates the symbols to their proper place: history.