Adventures in vexillological illiteracy

This is facepalm-worthy:

A couple who came under attack for displaying the Norwegian flag outside their mid-Michigan inn because some observers mistook it for a Confederate flag have found another way to show their Scandinavian pride. 

Greg and Kjersten Offenbecker, who own The Nordic Pineapple in St. Johns, outside Lansing, took Norway's flag down last month after being accused of promoting racism, the Lansing State Journal reported.

Apparently, people were confused because both flags feature a blue cross on a red background. The two flags are otherwise completely different; one cross is diagonal while the other is orthogonal, and one has stars while the other does not:

                        
Flag of a failed, racist, treasonous cause* on the left; flag of a modern, successful OECD member and NATO ally on the right. Images: Wikipedia

The owners of the inn think they've found a workaround: they'll use a different style of the Norwegian flag that should reduce potential confusion:

They are replacing it with a vimple, a type of long, pennant-shaped flag that can be seen displaying various designs across Scandinavia. The Offenbecker’s vimple will have the colors of the Norwegian flag — a red background with a blue cross superimposed on a white cross — in a nod to Kjersten Offenbecker’s grandfather who was born in Norway.

These pennant-shaped flags are apparently very common in Norway, since the use of the official flag is highly regulated.

While the Offenbeckers' solution is actually rather ingenious, it's honestly not something that they should have been forced to do in the first place. While the public display of racist symbols such as the Confederate flag should obviously be challenged, that's not what was happening here. This family should not be accused of racism or be forced to modify the perfectly legitimate flag they fly on their property just because some people are too ignorant to tell the difference between two clearly dissimilar flags.

*This was never the official flag of the Confederacy, and I'll probably get criticized for even displaying it on my blog.