Letter: Confederate Mania is attacking history

Lance Thate, Chairman
St. Augustine Tea Party

Special to Historic City News

Dear Editor:

St Augustine has a local pastor who is attacking veterans.  Confederate soldiers are considered US veterans under federal law, and they would be entitled to the same benefits as Union soldiers, if they were still alive.  This is because of an Act of Congress, Public Law 810 passed in 1929 and various other federal laws.

There are two monuments associated with the Confederate era located in the historic district of St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1872, the citizens of St. Augustine erected a monument in remembrance of soldiers who never returned home. Their relatives and friends wanted these veterans to be remembered. They served with honor and the people wanted their loss to be mourned.

The second monument is the Loring Memorial. Maj. Gen. Loring’s remains are buried under the memorial. This veteran’s memorial displays the flag under which he served. This is a right that all veterans are entitled too.

About 100 people showed up at St. Paul’s AME Church on August 21st to hear the church’s pastor, Rev. Ron Rawls, attack these two veteran memorials.

He demanded that city officials act quickly to remove the two Confederate monuments that occupy space in the historic district.

Free speech was not the order of the day. It was Rawls’ meeting in his church and only people agreeing with Rev. Ron Rawls were allowed to speak.  An exception was Baptist preacher and local Tea Party member, Doug Russo.

This meeting was so stifling and so left wing that substantial numbers of people left before the conclusion of the meeting. Pastor Russo later revealed that the meeting appeared to be dominated by “Liberation Theology”, a Communist invention to subvert Christianity.

On the surface, this appears to be a local issue. But it arises out of the Charlottesville statue event. It is part of a national phenomenon. The local Indivisible St Johns is embracing the national Marxist agenda.

First, the Communist Left finds a weakness. The toppling of a statue of Robert E. Lee with little resistance; then they push obsessively for the taking down of Confederate statues. Within a week, the statues of our founding fathers are under attack.

All Americans must stand up to this Cultural Marxism if we are to survive. The Tea Party is going to promote this article to our national audience. We will ask that those around the country take time to resist the rewriting of American history and support the memory of the American Veterans who served by letting the officials of the City of St. Augustine know that the country is watching.

Photo credits: © 2017 Historic City News contributed photograph by TCCR Staff