It's A Grand Old (Politically Correct) Flag

The last strains of The Star-Spangled Banner had faded from the court at Madison Square Garden, when Seton Hall University's Marco Lokar, an Italian citizen, came onto the floor to play ball in this land of the free. Each time Lokar touched the ball in the Feb. 2 game against St. John's University, the crowd booed and jeered the sophomore, the only player not wearing an American flag on his uniform. That night turned out to be the last time the flagless Lokar would wear his school's jersey. Last Wednesday he quit the team and dropped out of school. "I have received many threats, directed both toward me and my wife Lara, so that our life has become very difficult here," he explained. "We have decided to return to our hometown, Trieste."

Lokar's story is one of the more poignant examples of the harm that forced patriotism can inflict. As public backing for the war grows to near 80%, intolerance of failure to support the war in a politically correct way is on the rise. There have been acts of violence against antiwar protesters, though freedom of expression is one of America's most cherished principles. In Maplewood, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis, Timothy Dunn went out to pick up his morning newspaper and found that his antiwar sign had been torched by a primitive incendiary device. Prowar demonstrators in another Missouri town attacked a car draped with a peace sign. They shoved flagpoles through the windows and shouted, "Commie faggots!" at the two men inside. At the Defense Language Institute at Fort Ord in California, a Russian instructor's car was towed off the parking lot after the decorated Vietnam War veteran refused to remove PEACE IS PATRIOTIC and SAY NO TO WAR signs from the window of his van. The military said they were simply carrying out regulations requiring a permit for such displays.

When prowar sentiment is being expressed, however, rules that limit expression of a political idea have a way of being waived, modified or ignored. Authorities at Cornell University decided not to discipline students flying flags from their dormitory windows, despite residential contracts that for safety and maintenance reasons prohibit hanging anything from the window. The University of South Carolina officially frowns on students' leaning out of their windows and using Super Glue to affix flags and banners to their buildings. But officials tolerated the practice at one patriotic freshman dorm, where displays inside the window would not have been visible. After protests, the University of Maryland withdrew its objection to students' flying flags.

Any additions, subtractions or alterations to official uniforms usually invite disciplinary action, except, apparently, in wartime. Late last month, the New York City police department overruled itself and decided that flag patches larger than a lapel pin but no bigger than 1.5 in. by 2 in. would not violate its strict standards. A Worcester, Mass., court officer fought for and won the right to wear a yellow ribbon below the breast badge on his uniform, unless a particular judge decides it might disrupt his courtroom. When a gate attendant at Miami's Opa-Locka Airport was told to remove her yellow ribbon, she refused, saying, "If they want my ribbon and my flag, they'll have to take my shirt with it." The county manager quickly clarified the policy against political paraphernalia. Said he: "I believe the display of yellow ribbons should not be viewed as a political statement but rather as a symbol that we remember the men and women serving in the Persian Gulf." Even at Disney World, whose efficiency and neutrality rival those of Switzerland, the strict dress code has been modified to allow those among its 32,000 employees who do not deal directly with the public to wear yellow ribbons.

Would a black armband be exempted from official regulations as readily as a yellow ribbon or a flag? So popular is the war effort that the question has not come up yet -- and Marco Lokar did not stay around long enough to raise it. But as people like Lokar and Dunn are finding out, the fewer dissenters there are, the more they need protection.