The city of San Francisco confirmed it had removed a “Call Him” flag from outside City Hall over the weekend, days after it was reported that the flag had been flown outside the home of a conservative Supreme Court justice.
On May 22, The New York Times reported that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had raised a pine tree flag at his New Jersey vacation home last year, describing it as “a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, the religious side of his ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and a movement to remake American government from a Christian perspective.”
San Francisco Chronicle report The city announced Wednesday that a Revolutionary War-era flag that had been flying in Civic Center Plaza was removed Saturday for the first time in 60 years.
In a statement provided to the Chronicle, the city’s parks department said it removed the flag because it originally symbolized “the quest for American independence” but “has since been adopted by another group that does not represent the city’s values.”
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The city of San Francisco removed the “Appeal to Heaven” flag from near City Hall due to its association with anti-democratic groups. (SOPA Images / Contributor)
The Chronicle explained the Pine Tree Flag’s history as a patriotic symbol, saying it “originally flew from George Washington’s ships during the Revolutionary War,” but it also argued that the flag’s meaning has changed in modern times.
“It was one of several images appropriated by the conservative movement and featured prominently in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by people seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election,” the Chronicle reported.
The outlet reported that the Appeal to Heaven flag was “one of 18 flags the city first raised on Flag Day, June 14, 1964.” In a statement to the Chronicle, the city’s parks department said the flags commemorated “significant moments and symbols in American history,” including the Gasden Flag and the Texas Lone Star State flag.
The statement noted that city officials have removed another controversial flag in the past: the Confederate flag in 1964.
Critics called the flag a symbol of Jan. 6 and countered attempts to discredit Alito by linking him to the movement.
“This is just one of many historic American flags, and they’re trying to make it look like he was supporting insurrectionists or something, as part of some kind of conspiracy theorist guilt by association thing,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Fox News Digital.
San Francisco City Hall, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo by Paul Chin/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol on January 6 and was a potential target of the mob, said, “The controversy over Justice Alito flying the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag is absurd and ahistorical. This flag was ordered by George Washington in 1775 for use on six cruisers seizing British ships at sea and became the maritime ensign of the State of Massachusetts.”
“The meaning of the flag comes from John Locke,” he added, quoting the famous thinker: “‘Whenever any body of the People, or any individual, should be deprived of any Right, or have Power exercised against them which they have no Right to, and have no Recourse on Earth, they shall, at such time as they shall have a sufficient Cause to Appeal to Heaven’, Second Treatise on Civil Government (1689), John Locke.”
“The ‘Call to Heaven’ flag is part of our proud tradition of faith and freedom, and every American should be proud to fly it,” he concluded.
The liberal media and Democratic Party leaders have used the classic colonial-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag to link Supreme Court Justice Alito to the January 6th rioters. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
This was Alito’s second flag-related controversy in as many days. In the weeks after the Jan. 6 riot, the Times linked an “upside-down American flag” that flew at Alito’s Virginia home to support for the “Stop the Steal” movement and the storming of the Capitol.
After elements of the media tried to smear Alito over the two flags, leading members of the Democratic Party joined in. At one point, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Ore.) said in an X that Alito’s “Appeal to Heaven” flag was a “MAGA battle flag.”
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Civic Center Plaza did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.
