I would have thought, after this summer's national dialogue about the Confederate-flag-loving white gunman who killed nine black churchgoers in South Carolina, that the much-hated flag might be extinguished for good.

After all, not only did South Carolina lawmakers agree to take down the Confederate flag that had been flying over the state capitol, but corporate America also put the flag in the toxic category. You can't buy one or any rendering of one on any product anymore from any major American retailer.

Our president says it belongs in a museum.

So I was surprised when someone told me they've seen one flying for the last week or so, on a big flagpole over a house on the water in Stonington.

Not only is the big Confederate flag flying boldly, for anyone on a passing boat to see, but it was flying above a smaller American flag, I was told. The person who told me, who lives near the Confederate flag flyer, said they were offended.

Naturally, I set out to find out who was flying it and why.

When I finally met Steven Martin, at his home on Latimer Point Road, he was polite and graciously offered to take me out to his back terrace, where, sure enough, the Confederate flag was waving slightly in the thin September breeze.

Martin, who is a principal in an international consulting business, suggested the flag was hardly worth writing about. But he agreed to explain why he has been flying it.

First, he explained, he is a flag collector. He has more than 90 of them, some historic. This week, for instance, he has also been flying the Bunker Hill flag, also known as the flag of New England.

He once had some early American flags appropriate to Stonington made and donated them to the Stonington Historical Society.

Second, he set me straight on flag etiquette. He said on gaff-rigged poles like his, the American flag flies on the gaff, on an angle to the pole. You will see this at Mystic Seaport, he noted, where the Seaport's own flag is at the top of the pole and the American flag is on the gaff.

Martin said he has owned the Confederate flag a number of years and the reason he took it out recently to fly was in welcome to visitors from Georgia.

He said it is on private property and, indeed, it is hard to see from the street and is mostly only visible from the water. He doesn't believe it is offensive.

His mother, he said, was from Connecticut and his father was from Tennessee, and they refought the Civil War over meals throughout his childhood.

In listening to the Confederate flag debate that roared all summer, I thought one of the best analogies I heard was to the Nazi swastika. After all, they are both symbols of two of the most horrible regimes of modern history, one that systematically tried to exterminate a race and another that went to war to be able to keep a race enslaved.

I asked Martin if he would ever consider flying a swastika flag. He said no.

He could easily have slammed his door in my face when I turned up to ask about his Confederate flag. I honestly believe he doesn't understand why people would see it is a symbol of racism or question its display, especially on private property.

His response struck me as reasoned, but tone deaf.

Surely, if a newspaper reporter showed up at my front door with news that a neighbor was offended by my Confederate flag, I would take it down.

But it stayed up long after I left.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct