Keep the Flag Flying

Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I created this image 10 years ago by merging two separate photos I had taken: an American flag at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site; and the Rainbow Flag in the Castro District of San Francisco. This is what the flag of America should look like. This is what it does look like to me and many others.

I am afraid for this flag. It was a somewhat risky image 10 years ago in Tucson, AZ. Over the last decade, however, through the tireless efforts of so many Americans, it has become much more real, and a little less risky to fly. But very soon it could be torn down and trampled on again.

We must fight for our flag—we can't let the ignorant bigots do all the flag-waving. As Francis Scott Key wrote in the final stanza of our national anthem, "Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just…" This is the flag of justice.