White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked Wednesday how Obama, who has ordered the flag to be lowered to half-staff more than any other president, decides to make such a proclamation.
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Dorsey has a similar view during the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris.
Officials in an Alabama County refuse to lower flags to half-staff to show solidarity with other states as the nation grieves over the Orlando mass shooting.
Among the occasions the code specifies are Memorial Day and the death of a high official, but its guidelines are purely advisory.
Lowering the flags to half-staff after [a] mass shooting or terrorist event is not a valid circumstance or memorial as specified in the US flag code.
Flags across the United States no longer are flying at half-staff in honor of the victims of the Orlando gay nightclub massacre – but residents of one Alabama county won’t notice a difference.
President Obama ordered all US flags be flown at half-staff through Thursday, “As a mark of respect for the victims of the act of hatred and terror perpetrated on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida”.
[Q] uite frankly, I am not willing to hang my head down because of a terrorist attack against our people and our allies.
“I am not willing to hang my head down because evil shoots up a church, school, or movie theater”. He said the discretion over flag-lowering lies with him and decided against.
“I’ve certainly gotten feedback about how it is interpreted by the families and friends of those victims, that it’s disrespectful when it’s certainly not the intention of my heart, but the intention that we stand tall as Americans and fight the evil that has cost them and their friends’ lives”. He said it was “evil, not guns” that should be blamed for the attack. CBS affiliate KRGC reported commissioners in Cole County disagreed about the observance, with two commissioners saying lowering the flags too frequently would diminish the gesture.
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Reached by phone Friday, another commissioner, Charles Gruber, said the decision belonged exclusively to the chairman.
