April, 2002 was proclaimed Confederate History and Heritage Month across the state by the governor plus many mayors and probate judges, with the Alabama Board of Education having declared April Confederate History and Heritage Month in perpetuity. Our large daily newspapers, however, refuse to publish this recognition, nor will the TV stations do multiple "spots" about generals, battles, or even the genius of Jefferson Davis who simultaneously formed a government and fought off an invading army. The public school system will not hold assembly programs featuring guest speakers, nor decorate bulletin boards, hold art and essay contests or even allude to this historical event in which 30,000 Alabamians died.

Confederates made "news" in California though, with a newspaper columnist calling us "domestic terrorists" to be compared with the Taliban. Here in Alabama, the high church of the new national religion Tolerance, or Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), practices and preaches tolerance for all ethnicities, religions and groups except CSA descendants. The SPLC website lists several small, powerless Confederate heritage organizations as "hate groups." On January 11 when a company of Alabama citizens gathered at the capitol for an historical program, they were even denied electricity for a public address system.

One is made to wonder why so much negative attention to an historical epoch which ended 137 years ago and whose duration was only four short years? Is the CSA raising another army? Is that why we are compared to the Taliban? Why so much venom spewed at a small group of history buffs, reenactors and memorializers? What is it that so many powerful individuals and the media fear?

The CSA was created out of resistance to a tyrannical central government. Can it be that, in a nation now proceeding toward global government, even the history of such an idea must be snuffed out? Is it the family-oriented basis of the South that is offensive, in a time when the definition of marriage and family has changed from the traditional husband/wife/children model? Or, maybe it is the "Bible-belt" Christian connotation of the South which poses a danger?

Less government, traditional family, and God; radical ideas indeed.