For love of God and country
One man’s passion for the Ten Commandments and the flag
From, The Kentucky Citizen Digest, March/April, 2002.

From his youth, the Ten Commandments were familiar elements in Mark Cunningham’s life.  He knew them like the back of his hand—or so he thought.

A few years ago someone asked him to recite them.  “I sat down for 20 minutes and I got seven,” Cunningham said.  The man “congratulated” Cunningham by saying, “You’re in the majority. Ninety-nine percent of the people don’t know them.”

That interchange ignited a spark in Cunningham, a native of Morgan-field, to promote the Ten Commandments in Kentucky, first by distributing Ten Commandment yard signs, and most recently, by printing them on the blue field of the American flag surrounded by 50 gold stars.

Wearing a black cap with a Ten Commandments logo, Cunningham drank coffee and spoke enthusiastically as he related his story. “In February of 1999 I couldn’t stop thinking about the flag.  I was meditating on the scripture from Psalm 60:4: “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.”  He said the name “Old Glory” was particularly meaningful because “the glory has departed from America because we’ve gotten away from the Ten Commandments.”

Not long after he began sharing his idea to print the Ten Commandments on the flag, someone donated $5,000 for the project.  But Cunningham still had to overcome obstacles in introducing them to the public.

 “I couldn’t get the flags in the public arena.  I didn’t know how to go about it.  Then Sept. 11 happened and they went like crazy.  Nobody was really paying attention to the American flag until Sept. 11,” he said.  It’s the most recognized symbol in the world that stands for freedom and justice.  I saw what it meant to the American people.”

Cunningham sees the marriage of the Ten Commandments and the flag as a natural one, illustrating the love of both God and country.  “Prior to 1962, no public acknowledgment of God had ever been considered to be an establishment of religion,” Cunningham said, quoting the writings of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is battling the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the right to keep a Ten Commandments monument at his state’s judicial building.  “It’s about the law,” Cunningham said, “ and where the standard of truth is.”

He told of an incident during 1999 when the so-called Fairness Ordinance, a gay-rights campaign, was making its way through Kentucky communities.  Signs supporting special rights for homosexuals began popping up in yards throughout the city of Henderson.   “People were upset about the Fairness signs,” he said.  “They were having to explain them to their kids.”

After some discussion, opponents of the gay-rights initiative decided to respond with yard signs of their own—the Ten Commandments.  “The Fairness signs disappeared practically overnight.  You couldn’t find a Fairness Ordinance sign in Henderson and they hadn’t even voted on it yet,” Cunningham said.  “People were ashamed.”

But Cunningham said his purpose in promoting the Glory of the U. S. A. Ten Commandments Flag isn’t just about morality and patriotism, but about America’s Christian heritage.  “If we don’t put the best parts of our American heritage out there, we will forget, and somebody will come along and replace them.”

Cunningham said he is concerned that groups like the ACLU, with their recent lawsuits in seven Kentucky counties over the posting of the Ten Commandments, threaten to strip Christian references from our nation’s history.  “They’re real confused,” he said of the ACLU.  “This going after our heritage—I take it personally.”

“I have one objective in mind for these flags—to draw attention to the foundation of American law and government—the Ten Commandments,” he said.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander , Executive Director Martin Cothran , Senior Associate Policy Analyst