San Francisco officials removed a colonial-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag from the city’s Civic Center Plaza over the weekend, as Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito finds himself in hot water due to the flag’s association with the January 6 riot.
San Francisco first raised the Appeal to Heaven flag, which features a green pine tree on a white background with its titular motto, on June 14, otherwise known as Flag Day, in 1964. It was quietly taken down on Saturday and replaced with an American flag almost 60 years later, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
The controversial flag’s removal from San Francisco’s government-building complex comes after the New York Times published a series of articles about an upside-down American flag being flown outside Alito’s Virginia home and the Appeal to Heaven flag being flown outside his New Jersey beach house. According to the Times, both flags have been co-opted by the “Stop the Steal” movement, whose supporters believe the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump.
As a result, Democrats demanded that Alito recuse himself from the Supreme Court cases involving Trump and January 6. The conservative-leaning justice rejected their calls for recusal on Wednesday, saying he was unaware of either flag’s symbolic meaning in recent years. Alito added that he had no input in his wife’s decisions to fly both flags.
“I recall that my wife did fly that flag for some period of time, but I do not remember how long it flew,” Alito wrote of the Appeal to Heaven flag, which was spotted at his vacation home last summer. “And what is most relevant here, I had no involvement in the decision to fly that flag.”
“A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal,” he added. “I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request.”
San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department officials told the Chronicle that they removed the Civic Center’s Appeal to Heaven flag because it has ” been adopted by a different group — one that doesn’t represent the city’s values.” The banner originally represented the “quest for American independence,” they said.
A separate Appeal to Heaven flag could be seen at a separate location in the Californian city as recently as last week. It has since been removed.
Dating back to 1775, the Appeal to Heaven flag was flown on George Washington’s ships during the Revolutionary War. It was formally adopted for the Massachusetts navy’s use a year later.