In an eery sign suggesting that Trumpists and fomenters of civil war are everywhere among us, waiting for a signal to show themselves and rise up, a flag that was flown by January 6th insurrectionists, and recently by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (or his wife) made an appearance this week atop a building in San Francisco's Jackson Square.

There's not a lot of info about who was behind the raising of the flag at 708-710 Montgomery Street, otherwise known as the Canessa Printing Co. building. The Chronicle reports that it appeared on the flagpole atop the building, which is also home to French bakery cafe Maison Nico, on Thursday afternoon, and when the Chronicle took notice of it and inquired, the flag was removed early Friday morning.

A Google Street View image of the building shows an Italian flag flying on its flagpole in March 2022.

The flag is the "Appeal to Heaven" flag featuring an image of a pine tree, a relic of the Revolutionary War that has been coopted by the Christian right and by right-wing "Stop the Steal" activists. It was one of several previously obscure flags that made appearances during the January 6th riots. The flag has come to represent "a theological vision of what the United States should be and how it should be governed," as religion scholar Matthew Taylor tells the New York Times.

Highly problematically for Justice Alito, it appears to have flown all last summer outside his beach house on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. The Times reported on this days after a separate report on an upside-down American flag that was flown over multiple days on a pole outside the Alitos' Virginia home during the week of President Biden's 2021 inauguration, during a time when the Supreme Court was considering an appeal by Trump regarding the election.

Alito subsequently told the Times he had "no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag" upside-down, and laid blame on his wife, Martha-Ann Alito. Mrs. Alito reportedly also had a previous dispute with a neighbor on their block of an anti-Trump sign that neighbor had displayed on their lawn.

The revelation about the "Appeal to Heaven" flag further cements that the Alito household — driven either by the justice himself, his wife, or both of them — is firmly politically aligned with Christian right members of the "Stop the Steal" movement. And any notion that Alito remains an impartial jurist is pretty much out the window — though that is no surprise to anyone who has followed his career on the court, or read any of his dissents or majority opinions. His opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned Roe v. Wade, for instance, was rife with references to the religious bases of society and historic norms regarding the practice of abortion.

Per the Chronicle's report, Maison Nico owner Andrea Delaroque was shocked to learn of the flag atop the building, and she may have been influential in getting it replaced with a tricolor French flag. A gallery on the second floor of the building, the nonprofit Canessa Gallery, may be linked to the building's ownership — and the Chronicle notes that the principal officer of the nonprofit is one Zach Stewart. Stewart could not be reached for comment, but an employee who answered the door at Stewart's nearby residence told the paper that he had helped take the Pine Tree flag down at 7 am that morning.

Was this some kind of callback to the Alito story? A "Bat Signal" of sorts to other, likeminded revolutionaries or Christians?

In an uncomfortable coincidence, the Canessa building sits directly next door to the Foster Gwin Gallery, which was the site of that infamous video from January 2023 that showed gallery owner Collier Gwin turning a hose on a homeless woman who was loitering outside.

This is not the first time the "Appeal to Heaven" flag has flown in San Francisco. Repeat longshot candidate for mayor Ellen Lee Zhou tweeted a video of someone holding the flag in UN Plaza in August 2023. She tweeted to her supporters in December that there would be a gathering every Sunday morning at 8 am in UN Plaza to call for an "appeal to heaven... to end homelessness and drug dealers in San Francisco." One such gathering is shown in video below from April 20 of this year.

Another Twitter user, making reference to "all The Democrats angry at Justice Alito," posted this undated video of an "Appeal to Heaven" flag flying in City Hall Plaza. This photo from March 2018 also shows the flag outside City Hall.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is running for mayor in November, tells the Chronicle that if the flag appearing on Montgomery Street wasn't just a prank, "I would roll my eyes and keep walking."

Top image: A reportedly vintage Appeal to Heaven flag for sale on Etsy.

A 52-year-old, 28-foot cross that was lit up for Easter and Christmas at Albany Hill Park has been removed by the City of Albany because it promotes one religion over others, and to boot, its electrical writing may pose a fire risk.

If you’ve ever been to Albany Hill Park, some 25 miles northeast of San Francisco, you may have noticed that a 28-foot Christian cross (seen below) sits atop one of its hills. The cross was put there by the local chapter of the Lions Club in 1971, and was lit up every Easter and the week prior to Christmas. To detractors, the cross on city-owned property is a pretty obvious violation of the separation of church and state, and there have been lawsuits over it for years.

According to the Bay Area News Group, critics say the cross “symbolizes a preference of one religion over others, offends some members of the city’s diverse communities, is reminiscent of KKK cross-burnings in the East Bay hills in the 1920s, and is an eyesore.”

The News Group reports that the cross was just quietly removed from the park, and has been placed in storage while its fate is determined. The Lions Club is up in arms, though the land is no longer private, which it was when the cross was erected. And a federal judge had already ordered it removed in 2018, which city officials have now finally done.

“For the small local group of people that really want to see the cross stay, when you’ve had such privilege for so long, losing it feels like being oppressed,” Albany Mayor Aaron Tiedemann told the News Group. “That’s going to be an adjustment for folks, but I think we will all get used to it, and I think it’s a real benefit.”

Additionally, the thing constitutes a fire risk with all the electrical lines around trees. PG&E  had cut the power in 2017, but then restored it again, with the Lions Club complaining that removing the power lines was “part of a harassment campaign.”

And the Lions Club is still complaining. “I think they just gave the city of Albany a black eye,” Albany Lions Club president Kevin Pope told the News Group. “There’s a lot of people who love it being up there — a lot of people go up there and pray and have church services. It’s sacred ground to us, and taking it down shows their intolerance toward Christian values.”

The controversy recalls SF’s Mount Davidson cross, which went up in wooden form in the 1920s, was replaced with a permanent concrete version in 1934, and made a cameo in the 1971 film Dirty Harry. That cross too was ruled unconstitutional, but the city sidestepped that ruling in 1997 by selling the small patch of land it sits on to the Armenian American Organizations of Northern California.  

The trial on whether the Albany Hill cross will be returned, or if the Lions Club will be forced to accept some settlement from the city, is scheduled to begin July 17.

Related: San Francisco Is Only The Fourth Most Godless Place In The Country, Study Finds [SFist]

Image: Eve E via Yelp

Is there any relationship as gratifying and exhausting as the gay male-straight female friendship? But, according to a brilliant article in the satirical ChristWire ("The Fag Hag: How a Girl’s Misguided Friendship Choices Can Lead to a Lifetime of Loneliness") penned by genius Christian Investigative Journalist Stephenson Billings, being a fag hag is all kinds of gauche. And, best of all, easily avoidable.

First off, how does a girl go from a life of Lauren Conrad lilt to a life of singing showtunes with her gay BFFs and too much eyeliner? Pimples.

A girl suffering from pimples feels ashamed and awkward, ugly and unloved. She will hide her face, sit at the back of the classroom and lose interest in meeting boys.

Luckily, Proactiv will help cure the world of fag haggorty. Billings explains:

Fortunately, pimples and acne are easily addressed by a good dermatologist and the right medications. If your child suffers from pimples, please get involved and monitor your girl’s facial care. It’s a simple thing to do and can really make a difference for her self-esteem and for her ability to meet your expectations.

Moving on. Billings claims that women attach themselves to gays for a lifetime of life of unobtainable glamor, freshly-shaven chests, and high-end restaurants. Something they will never have.

Remember that young Christian couple who was found shot to death on the beach near Jenner in 2004? Well, the case remains open, however there was a person of interest named Joseph Burgess who was suspected in the case by Sonoma County sheriffs because of the similarity of a 1972 murder in British Columbia in which Burgess was also a suspect.

Anyhow, the man had guns, and when closed in upon this week by authorities in New Mexico he apparently started shooting, and ended up shot dead himself. The father of one of the victims, Lindsay Cutshall, takes the Christian view of all this, naturally, and says he hopes that Burgess will face justice in the afterlife.

In this hilarious new video from Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian (a.k.a. LA-based comedienne Deven Green who was responsible for those voice-over spoofs of Brenda Dickson you may have seen/heard round the internet a couple years back), Betty provides a rapid-fire rundown of the many bizarre ways "marriage" is defined in the Old Testament, along with much funny animation of concubines and rapists.

Hat tip to The Sword (NSFW).

Walnut Creek police are investigating an armed robbery at a Chevron gas station Sunday night, (Oh hey, speaking of Walnut Creek, did any of you catch Prayers for Bobby this weekend? It aired on Lifetime. It was about a Walnut Creek mother, Mary Griffith, whose fundamentalist Christian beliefs eventually lead to the suicide of her gorgeous, young, homosexual son. And it was good. Really good. It did a seamless job of addressing the biblical roots of homophobia, showing how effective said roots are at pulverizing the spirits of young gay men and women. But this prompts a crisis of soul searching, leading to Griffith's enlightenment and redemption via queer advocacy. Also, Sigourney Weaver plays the mother and she's typically remarkable in every scene. While it's cliched to say, Weaver commands the screen whenever she appears. Probably because she kills aliens. Anyway, Prayers for Bobby will be replaying on Lifetime for the next month or so, and we recommend you checking it out.) No arrests were made.