The Confederate battle flag flies at a memorial in front of the South Carolina statehouse.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who's seeking the Republican nod for the White House in 2016, said the Confederate flag represents part of what his South Carolina state is all about, and he wouldn't remove it from the Capitol.
He made the remarks in reply to a question from CNN's Alisyn Camarota about whether it was time to bring down the Confederate flag, in the face of the massive church shooting that killed nine.
Advertisement - story continues below
Currently, South Carolina flies the Confederate flag from the Capitol, though it's been lowered to half-mast for the last two days.
TRENDING: WATCH: Trump calls himself '45th and 47th' president of the United States
Graham's answer was a resounding "no."
He said, Mediaite reported: "But this is part of who we are. The flag represents, to some people, a civil war and that was the symbol of one side. To others, it's a racist symbol and it's been used by people in a racist way."
Advertisement - story continues below
He also said it's "fine" if South Carolinians want to "revisit" the decision to fly the flag atop the Capitol. But he also added: It's not the flag that makes people racist.
Rather, racism comes from "what's in people's heart," he said.
Rep. Mark Sanford, who used to serve as South Carolina's governor, who was asked the same question on MSNBC, responded similarly, calling the flag a "symbol of heritage," not one of hate.
See WND's extensive coverage of the Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre:
Advertisement - story continues below
Was church shooter on powerful mind-altering drug?
Charleston shooter 'wanted to start a civil war'
Big radio talkers react to church massacre
Charleston church shooter: 'You rape our women'
Advertisement - story continues below
Obama: America must 'do something' about 'gun violence
Hero of 1993 church attack calls for being armed
BIG LIST of drug-induced killers
Dylann Roof confesses: 'Everyone so nice' at church
WND COMMENTING IS BACK!
Dear WND Readers and Commenters: In response to WND recently being totally de-monetized by Google (an action Google claims it took, in part, because it objected to content posted by some commenters), WND temporarily removed commenting from the site to allow our tech team time to implement a commenting solution that would allow commenters to continue to voice their opinions freely, while also allowing WND to continue to publish the news fearlessly and cover topics of vital importance to our readers.
Commenting is now back! As part of our solution to Google’s attacks on our commenters, we are switching our commenting platform to INSTICATOR. Don’t worry! We’ve saved all your account info and comments from previous articles. All you have to do is create a commenting account with Insticator and then you will be able to link past comments from Disqus into your new Insticator account. Due to the volume of comments, some older comments may currently be missing but will be uploaded soon! If you have any feedback or questions about your Insticator commenting account, please email them at: [email protected]