The Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida flies a big American flag out front so that people will regard it as a patriot-friendly lodging establishment. Sadly, that fluttering piece of fabric will probably disappear soon, because the hotel's new management hates American flags. Hates!

On Friday, the hotel fired front desk supervisor Sean May all because he refused to remove his American flag pin from his lapel. May says he's worn the pin every day for the last two years, but a "change in command" (replacing the old execs with an anti-Wall Street protester and the ghost of Lenin) has led to renewed interest in enforcing the rules about pin-wearing. "They're so upset about a little pin, and yet I come to work every day and flying over the hotel there's a gigantic American flag," he said to 4Jax News on Thursday. Maybe the hotel only hates flag pins but not fabric flags? (Answer: No, it hates all flags/America/freedom.)

The hotel has tried to rationalize its decision to the press by pointing to its employee handbook, which "clearly states, 'No other buttons, badges, pins or insignias of any kind are permitted to be worn.'" But if May had worn an Obama '12 button or a hammer-and-sickle flag pin he would probably have his job today.

A local veteran says he's organizing a boycott of the hotel, while others are bewildered by the hotel's apparent decision to suddenly follow its own rulebook, which clearly prohibits all pins from all employee lapels. No matter what your stance is on flags and flag pins, it does seem like bullshit to fire a guy just for wearing a stupid little flag pin that doesn't harm anybody. Should May have been fired? Will the Casa Monica's new managers burn that gigantic flag down and replace it with a giant solidarity fist flag, or Saddam Hussein's buttock? Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

Update: May posted about his pin predicament on a forum and instead of rallying to his defense, lots of people were mean to him! Somewhere a flag is crying.

[WNEM]