In a secretly recorded conversation, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Mary-Ann, said she wants to hang a Catholic flag at her home in response to the indignity of seeing a Pride flag in her neighborhood.
The conversation was recorded by documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who posed as a religious conservative at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s Annual Dinner on June 3. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month,” Alito told Windsor.
Alito added that, at her husband's request, she will hold off putting up the flag until he is “done with all this nonsense.” But after that, she said that she would fly the flag to “send them a message every day, maybe every week.” She went on to tell Windsor that she dreams of putting up a custom white flag with red and orange flames that read, "Vergogna," which means “shame” in Italian.
Windsor posted an edited six minute recording of the conversation to social media on Monday evening, just hours after sharing another secretly recorded conversation with Justice Alito.
The Alitos have already flown controversial flags outside their homes. Days after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an upside-down American flag was raised outside their house in Virginia. The upside-down flag has historically been used in various protest movements, signalling a nation in distress, but has turned into a pro-Trump symbol in support of his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
The New York Times reported last month that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, also adopted by the far right as a pro-Trump and Christian nationalist symbol, was seen flying outside Alito's vacation home in New Jersey.
Justice Alito wrote to Democratic members of Congress that his wife was solely responsible for the flags outside their homes.
In her conversation with Windsor, Alito, a native of Kentucky, went on to rant about being attacked by the media and liberals. “I’m German, from Germany," she said, presumably referring to time she spent in the country after her father was stationed there as part of his U.S. military service. "My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you.”
