The Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to know what led a cemetery district in Orange County, California to remove a monument honoring Confederate war veterans.
The Orange County Register reports the monument in Santa Ana Cemetery, which had been defaced with red paint and the word “racist,” was later removed by government leaders.
Greg Frazier, a spokesman of the California Sons of Confederate Veterans, said on the Todd Starnes Radio Show no one with the Orange County Cemetery District has been communicating with the group.
“We placed the monument there in 2004 with the unanimous approval of the entire district, and it honors ten prominent Orange County founding fathers who had previously served in the Confederate States’ military and moved to California,” said Frazier. “This monument simply has their names on it, and it lists their contributions to the founding of the county, and we’re talking doctors, and lawyers, and judges, and assemblymen.”
There were no flags or weapons on the monument.
“They just simply took it away because these men were a collective group of Confederate soldiers,” said Frazier.
According to The Orange County Register, cemetery officials could not find records showing the monument was approved by the district’s board. However, Frazier said that’s not true.
“Between the years 2000 and 2004, all of the legalities went down, and we have documentation and witnesses, including the current groundskeeper at the cemetery who remembers the whole thing start to finish,” Frazier explained. “The cemetery gifted us the plot of land but we paid for the monument. So, this is a case of actually private property being stolen.”
“By the government?” asked Starnes.
“By the Orange County Cemetery District, and that is a county office, yes,” answered Frazier. “All of our attempts to speak with these folks have failed, but we did get an email saying that they would speak to us on Tuesday, so we’ll see how that goes.”
Frazier stressed that the men identified on the monument are American military veterans.
“It doesn’t matter if your USA or CSA, you’re all covered under the V.A. and that monument was in fact desecrated and stolen,” he said. “I live in the eastern part of California, which is still very conservative, but as you get closer to the coast and the coastal enclaves where people congregate, you’ve got a very liberal progressive attitude, and the history is coming down faster than we can put it up.”
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to fight the decision to remove the monument.
“Our state commander is in fact an attorney, and we have a whole board of attorneys, and we are going to fight this every way we can, because you know think of the families of these poor men,” said Frazier. “These are some of the most prominent families in the history of that county, and the monument to their ancestor was just taken away.”