#confederate

Gov. Abigail Spanberger just signed House Bill 167, stripping the United Daughters of the Confederacy — and other Confederate heritage organizations — of their state property and recordation tax exemptions.

A separate bill also kills Virginia’s Robert E. Lee specialty license plates. The UDC has spent over a century erecting Confederate monuments across the country, promoting the “Lost Cause” myth that romanticizes the slaveholding Confederacy. And Virginia taxpayers were subsidizing it.

Bill sponsor Del. Alex Askew was direct: “Why is the commonwealth supporting groups that rewrite history to obscure the true cause of the Civil War? A war fought to uphold the institution of slavery, America’s original sin?” The UDC called it “viewpoint discrimination.” The Sons of Confederate Veterans called ending the Lee license plate “terrible.”

Apparently, losing a taxpayer subsidy feels like oppression when you’ve had it long enough. Askew said it plainly: “A tax exemption is a privilege and not a right.” Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy. Now it’s making clear whose side it’s on.