
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 27, 1995                   TAG: 9503270035
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MCSWEENEY

PATRICK McSweeney, chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, spoke Sunday at the dedication of a Confederate flag monument in Danville. He did so, he said before the event, simply as a private citizen interested in issues of Virginia history.

This, of course, he has a First Amendment right to do. For that matter, he'd have the same First Amendment right had spoken in his official capacity as GOP chairman.

Which, practically if not technically, is the case. The printed program identified him in his political role. If McSweeney were simply a Richmond lawyer, and not also the Republican chairman, would he even have been invited to talk? Unlikely.

To recognize the right to speak is not necessarily to like what's spoken. By participating in the dedication, McSweeney supports not only (if at all) the study of history but also the glorification of a symbol of the Confederacy. Such glorification understandably gives offense to thousands of Virginians, many of whose ancestors were enslaved by an institution whose defense and perpetuation was central to the Confederacy's reason for being.

Offensive speech, symbolic or otherwise, also falls within the First Amendment's protective reach. That, however, makes it no less offensive. McSweeney's acceptance of the invitation bespoke, at best, obtuseness on the matter.

That reflects not only on McSweeney but also on his party. The chairman's public and private lives cannot be divorced so facilely as he asserts. When a public man agrees to speak at the public dedication of a monument whose existence is the consequence of a public controversy, it is reasonable to infer the statement has a public purpose.

by CNB