McAffrey looks at the flagpole and scorched grass

Oklahoma state Sen. Al McAffrey and his partner David Stinson woke up Saturday morning — probably after their dogs made a fuss — and found the American flag atop a flagpole in their front yard was on fire.

Other than the burned flag and some scorched grass, no other damage was done. As you can seen in the photo above, smaller flags lining the walk were untouched.

“Early this morning sometime someone came to ou[r] house and set our American Flag on fire on the pole,” Stinson wrote on his Facebook page. “You can see the black in the grass. Set the grass on fire a bit. Could have been a lot wors[e].”

In an email to Instant Tea over the weekend, McAffrey said he didn’t want to turn the incident into “some big hate crime media fiasco.” Instead, he and Stinson were condemning it as sacrilege on Memorial Day weekend.

According to the Daily Oklahoman, McAffrey flies the flag daily and replaced the burned flag on Saturday afternoon. The flag was set on fire while it was on top of the pole.

McAffrey did note that the incident happened a day after he was featured on the cover of Dallas Voice, but he isn’t blaming us for the incident. He’s not even blaming supporters of anti-gay state Rep. Sally Kern, saying it could have simply been a random act of vandalism.

McAffrey’s flag, larger than the one flown at the state House, is illuminated, and he flies it ’round the clock. He called it a point of pride, having served four years in the Navy.

Watch a video report from KWTV in Oklahoma City below: