But in this letter, Alito explained that the flags had nothing to do with him. They were flown by his wife. His wife’s flags, he repeatedly insisted, were his wife’s business, and his wife’s business alone.
It’s a great letter. Let’s take a closer look.
“My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly,” wrote the conservative 74-year-old George W. Bush appointee. “She therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit, and there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly.” As for the other flag, flown at their New Jersey beach house — that home was purchased with his wife’s own money and is “titled in her name.”
Yes. Excellent. I am with you so far, Justice Alito. I applaud your recognition of a woman’s right to oversee her own flags on her own property without the influence or governance of a man.
“My wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes,” he wrote.
I’m glad you made this point, Justice Alito. Sometimes women have deeply personal reasons for needing to fly a flag, and those reasons are not our, nor the government’s, business.
“My wife is a private citizen.”
Absolutely! She is a private citizen! Here and now, I stand with Justice Samuel Alito in being horrified that lawmakers would presume to involve themselves in decisions that should be made between a women and her flag-maker.
“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not.”
This is where Justice Alito is really outdoing himself. He is showing a truly evolved understanding of flag-displaying issues. He acknowledges that he personally would not fly a flag — and that’s fine. Not flying a flag is entirely his business. But Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recognizes that his personal preferences regarding flags should have no bearing on whether millions of women around the country choose to fly flags.
“My wife is an independently minded private citizen. She makes her own decisions, and I honor her right to do so.”
I will grant you, Alito is getting a little repetitive. He has already made these points elsewhere in his letter. But I would argue that his repetition serves moral and rhetorical purposes. In this sentence, Alito is affirming that Mrs. Alito is legally permitted to fly flags not only because she is an owner of the property on which the flags were flown, but also because she is an independent being who is capable of making her own decisions.
And even when Alito thinks his wife is making bad decisions, he is showing that he still recognizes that those decisions are hers to make. Even when he feels as if those decisions personally affect him — because his religion is opposed to flags, perhaps, or because his friends all hate flags, and his social and political lives will be made uncomfortable if people find out he’s flying them — he still understands that it is ultimately not his call, whether to fly a flag. If he were so opposed to flag-flying, maybe he should have been more careful about providing the pole.
Alito concludes with asking that his wife be left alone, to enjoy her vacation home and her flag. “It is a place, away from Washington, where she should be able to relax.”
Bravo, Justice Alito. I am buoyed and heartened by your thoughtful, spirited defense of your wife. You and I have not always seen eye to eye, but I am glad that we have at last found some common ground on issues related to women’s privacy, autonomy, independence and decision-making capabilities vis-à-vis government interference.
I look forward to reading many more of your thoughts regarding women’s rights to obtain flags. And by flags, I mean abortions.
