Doing the right thing can result in losing a position one holds dear. That happened to two of three men who will be honored with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award May 12. Former Govs. Roy Barnes of Georgia and David Beasley of South Carolina lost their reelection contests at least partly as a result of opposing Confederate symbols and what they represent.

Beasley, a Republican, angered South Carolina conservatives by proposing to move the Confederate flag from atop the Statehouse. The legislation failed, and Beasley later blamed the flag issue for his 1998 defeat.

Barnes, a Democrat, was voted out of office in 2002 after he pushed through changes to his state's flag. The new flag reduced the Confederate emblem, which had dominated the flag, to a small insignia.

The neo-Confederate movement has taken credit for the ousters of Beasley and Barnes and is now threatening the current governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, and Missouri Gov. Bob Holden.

The third recipient of the Kennedy award will be a former Georgia state representative.

[Dan] Ponder, whose ancestors owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy, delivered an impassioned speech on a hate-crimes bill on the Georgia House in March 2000.

In it, he recounted his shame over a childhood rejection of his black housekeeper. The measure passed overwhelmingly.

Note: This item has been published at Sisyphus Shrugged.

The phrase "moral equivalence" is used so much in the blogosphere that it is becoming trite. However, in these times of danger and despair, it bodes well for us to fisk the Right's claims of liberal malfeasance as often as is necessary to prevent further deception of the public. Earlier this month, conservatives claimed a moral equivalence between the behaviors of possible anti-Semite Rep. James Moran (Dem-VA) and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, a lifelong segregationist and obstructionist to civil rights. The Republican could teach the Democrat a thing or two about deep-seated bigotry in my opinion. This piece from the watch, called "Mississippi Goddam," explains why.