This photo of a baby in an American flag made the internet go nuts

Baby in the flag.
(Image credit: Twitter.com/WTAE)

A photographer who shared an image of a newborn infant wrapped in an American flag is facing heat from critics who say she desecrated Old Glory.

In the picture, the baby and the flag are held by the infant's father, dressed in his military uniform. Photographer Vanessa Hicks, a Navy veteran and wife of an active-duty Navy member, said she wanted to honor the dad's service. "This is what he was fighting for, his son wrapped in an American flag," Hicks told ABC News.

After she posted the picture to Facebook, Hicks said she started to receive messages telling her the photo was "disgusting," "rude," "tacky," and "disrespectful." Angry comments were left on her website, and she said she spent hours deleting the nasty posts. "I have seen first-hand what is desecration of the flag," she said. "At the end of the day I didn't do anything that disrespected this flag."

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The drama has actually been good for business: Hicks said she is receiving a flood of requests for photo shoots, and will donate 15 percent of profits related to these shoots to the USO.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.