re: #608 b_sharp

Why?

To me, conflating the symbol and the object has a religious texture that can get in the way of objective consideration.

I’m a Canuck, and if you want to piss on the Canadian flag, or call Canada a piss hole, go right ahead, I may even join you, especially if you have evidence, but walk in with guns blazing in an attempt to change how I live, and I’ll take you down.

No worries! You are entitled to your opinion, and sound like my kind of Canuck! Not speaking for others, of course, in my own case I wouldn’t call it any kind of religious conflation (certainly no mysticism there), As to the reason why, If I had to characterize it, I would call it more of a representational synthesis of the ideals for which it serves as a proxy.

One of those ideals is freedom of expression, and before you throw me in the briar patch b’rer Lizard, I would defend your right to burn the flag on the courthouse steps if you were so inclined.

In this specific case it was the school administrators who came in to attempt to change how the students lived (truncating their fully legal freedom of expression to accommodate an interest group’s feelings—even specifying that they could wear such on any other day). I also would not agree with administrators sending them home for wearing orange shirts on St Patricks Day.

/Of course, YMMV