A bill introduced into the Georgia state legislature by Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) would make it illegal to “abuse contemptuously” any statue, plaque, monument, or historical marker honoring Confederate symbols, soldiers, or celebrities. It would also outlaw anyone from banishing such tributes to an obscure playground or hiding them behind a bush or a tree.
“We’re not saying they can’t move them,” Benton told the Atlanta Daily World. “We’re just saying they can’t just put them in a field somewhere.”
The news article doesn’t say who Rep. Benton has in mind as possible perpetrators of such heinous deeds, although it certainly suggests a sinister outside force. It’s difficult to imagine Southerners inflicting groundskeeping hanky-panky on icons such as Alabama‘s Sunbonnet Heroine or Arkansas‘ Boy Martyr of the Confederacy, but maybe things are different in Georgia?
Our experience with monumenticide (a word we just invented) is that it’s far more likely from within than without. It was neighbors, not carpetbaggers, who destroyed the toilet seat tributes in Boron, California, and attempted (and failed) to banish the Big Pink Pig of Hatch, New Mexico.
Still, Rep. Benton may be privy to information withheld from the general public. His bill, for example, specifically cites “obstruction of Stone Mountain” as a possible calamitous future event — and the carvings of Confederate heroes on Stone Mountain are 400 feet high!
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The news article doesn’t say who Rep. Benton has in mind as possible perpetrators of such heinous deeds, although it certainly suggests a sinister outside force. It’s difficult to imagine Southerners inflicting groundskeeping hanky-panky on icons such as Alabama‘s Sunbonnet Heroine or Arkansas‘ Boy Martyr of the Confederacy, but maybe things are different in Georgia?
