A federal judge on Monday temporarily barred the removal of a memorial to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery after a push from a citizens group and some GOP lawmakers.

The temporary restraining order, issued by U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. in Alexandra, Va., comes just one day after a group called Defend Arlington, which is affiliated with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, filed a suit against the Department of Defense seeking a restraining order against the memorial’s removal.

It is set to expire at 5 p.m. Wednesday following an expected hearing Wednesday morning.

  • Kid_Thunder@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    11 months ago

    Why are some GOP lawmakers supporting a monument built for traitors and racists? If it is about heritage, then why are you proud of a traitorous heritage? If it’s simply not to wipe away history then why can’t they just follow their plan of putting it in a museum?

    Hopefully that museum shows it in a context that does not glorify a bunch of insurrectionist slaver garbage.

    The actual descendants of the original sculptor even want it gone. Washington Post, Descendants of Rebel sculptor: Remove Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery, 2017

    Now a group claiming ancestry from a Confederate veteran named Moses Jacob Ezekiel, who was a renowned sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is asking that one of his most prominent works be taken down.

    Twenty-two people in the Ezekiel family — ages 20 to 90 — from across the country signed the letter calling for the Confederate Memorial’s removal from Arlington.

    “All of us agree that monuments to the Confederacy are racist justifications of slavery, of owning people,” she said Friday in a telephone interview. “We wanted to say that although Ezekiel is a relative of ours, we still believe it’s a relic of a racist past.”

    Let’s not forget Trump vetoed the Bill that was overridden by Congress that allowed this to happen.