Sad Missouri county to fly flags at below half-mast over gay marriage ruling

UPDATE: The commissioners have decided to reassess their vote. 

Dent County is a place in southeast Missouri where about 15,000 people live. Today, the County Commission there voted unanimously — unanimously! — to fly the flags at the courthouse and judicial building below half-mast on the 26th day of every single month between now and June 2016. 

Why the 26th? That’s the day last month when tragedy hit Dent County — when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marriage. From The Salem News (Salem is the Dent County seat): 

The Dent County Commission voted unanimously Monday to observe one year of “mourning” over the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision that gay couples have the constitutional right to marriage.

The observance will come in the form of lowering the flags at the Dent County Courthouse and Judicial Building to below half-staff on the 26th day of the month from July 2015 to June 2016.

The vote came after Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles filed a letter into the public record protesting, “the U.S. high court’s stamp of approval of what God speaks of as an abomination.”

The letter details Skiles’ opposition to gay marriage and proposes lowering of the flags so “all who see these flags at this lowered position be reminded of this despicable Supreme Court travesty,” he wrote.

Citizens are also doing this kind of thing in nearby Springfield, because Obummer. Here is a photo of the honorable Darrell Skiles, by the way:

If you like that photo, you might be interested in spending a few minutes on the County Commissioners Association of Missouri website, which is here, and which contains at least a couple LOLs.