A FLAG WITHOUT FREEDOM

This past Tuesday, April 12th, the New Hampshire Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee voted
to pass HB 132, a bill which would prohibit condominium associations and other property managers
from denying residents the right to fly the American flag outside their homes. Sponsored by one of the
state's most reliable conservative voices, Concord Rep. Lynne Blankenbeker, the bill would allow the
managers to place reasonable restrictions on size and manner for American flags, but would stop them
from enforcing an outright ban. HB 132 soared easily through the conservative Republican House and
appears on track to get an equally successful resolution in the full Senate.

It should not.

The principled American conservative does not arrive quickly at that conclusion. Throughout the
country, assaults on the traditional virtue of patriotism are only less common than those against the
virtue of the family. We have seen elected leaders who have proudly refused to wear American flag
lapel pins, using tortuous and fallacious justifications against it. We have seen allegedly intelligent
commentators actually call for the banishment of the national anthem. Political wags who would
energetically object to public school kids putting on a nativity play at Christmas just as energetically
defend the burning of American flags at protests. So prevalent and pernicious are these attacks that
conservatives have good reason to respond, providing whatever defense they can of our country, our
Constitution and our heritage.

The challenge is to enthusiastically provide that defense without simultaneously countering the rights
and privileges of citizens. HB 132 was prompted by cases such as that of the Farnells of Gilford, whose
American flag had been proudly flown from a pole outside of their condominium home. When it was
later damaged by roofers hired by the property managers, the Farnells were denied reimbursement due
to the condominium association's standing prohibition of outside "decorations." Troy Farnell is a 49-
year-old member of the First Special Forces Group and has been stationed overseas since February. His
wife, Geri Farnell is also a veteran. They have retained counsel and are suing for compensation, but their
story and others helped to inspire NH Rep. Blankenbeker - who is herself a veteran - to create the bill.

Unfortunately, despite its noble intentions, HB 132 infringes on the rights of citizens to freely engage
and enforce private contracts. The Farnells, good people that they are, entered into a contractual
relationship with their condo association in which they would receive the benefits of a managed
residential environment in return for obedience to the association’s rules. They were not coerced into
this relationship nor, it appears, have they been otherwise impeded by it. Whatever the property
managers’ rationale for prohibiting flags, whether it is the result of silliness or malevolence, it is still
their rationale and they are legally entitled to it. To sign on as a condominium resident thus
acknowledges your acceptance of that rationale too.

HB 132 would insert the power of the state into those relationships for the worthy but misguided
purpose of advancing patriotism, and would unintentionally strike against the vital conservative
principle of individual liberty. It would take the government’s commendable promotion of patriotic
fervor and put it on the short path to compulsion – and few things would kill love for our country faster
than that. The Farnell’s restitution must come from appealing to the judicial system, not from the
abandonment of contractual standards.