The Record
Hackensack, N.J.

NO ACT OF political protest makes Americans' blood boil so hot as when some misguided jerk sets fire to Old Glory. The flag , after all, is the emblem of all the values that our nation cherishes _ the very values that so many Americans have sacrificed life and limb to defend.

But it is one thing to be outraged by flag -burnings and quite another to want to change the Constitution in order to outlaw them. That's why it is disconcerting that so many Americans say in opinion poll after opinion poll that they support a constitutional amendment to that end. And that's why it is disconcerting that so many members of Congress keep pushing this hot-button issue.

The Constitution's First Amendment has remained sacrosanct ever since it was ratified with the Bill of Rights 207 years ago. Is it really worth messing with the First Amendment right to free speech in order to deal with an issue that is hardly a threat to the nation's well-being? Flag -burning is a form of protest that occurs just a handful of times a year in a nation of more than 260 million people. This may be an emotional issue, but certainly Congress has more important ones to deal with.

Here's what is at stake. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech," and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice in the past decade that burning the American flag qualifies as free speech. Thus, while the flag is a symbol of our hard-won freedoms, making flag -burning illegal is to diminish perhaps the most essential of those freedoms: the freedom of speech.

Nonetheless, many members of Congress want to pass a one-sentence amendment to the contrary: "The Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." The proposed amendment would require a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate and approval by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Last year, the House approved the proposed amendment by a 310-114 vote. Senate leaders have promised to bring the bill to a vote before the end of the year — and there's an outside chance the vote could come as early as today. The measure already has 61 co-sponsors. It would need six more votes for passage. That would be a mistake.

When the issue heated up three years ago, The Washington Post ran an article by Ivan Warner, an American prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973 in North Vietnam, where he was repeatedly tortured and locked in solitary for months on end.

During one interrogation, a communist officer showed him a photo of American war protesters burning a flag . "There," said the officer. "People in your own country protest against your cause. That shows you are wrong."

To which Ivan Warner replied: "No, that proves I am right. In my country we are not afraid of freedom, even if it means that people disagree with us."

According to Mr. Warner, the interrogator became enraged and began to scream at him, and "while he was ranting I was astonished to see pain, compounded by fear, in his eyes."

What are we so afraid of that we must alter the Bill of Rights and curtail our freedom of speech?

And now, for a word on the complex constitutional issue that explores this nation's delicate balance between freedom of expression and the preservation of social order, we bring you -- a baseball manager.

That's how silly things have gotten in Washington as lawmakers return to the heated issue of amending the Bill of Rights to outlaw flag burning.

Instead of relying on legal scholars to debate the pros and cons of altering the First Amendment , or on historians to describe what the Founding Fathers intended when drafting that bedrock protection for free speech, this time the Senate Judiciary Committee opted for former baseball manager Tommy Lasorda.

His contribution to the debate? Name recognition and guaranteed media coverage for an emotionally-charged issue in an election year.

Beyond that, Capitol Hill's use of athletes and actors carries no more validity than when Madison Avenue tries to get the public to use a pain pill because some celebrity says it's good.

Presumbly Lasorda and former "Dukes of Hazard" star John Schneider didn't get paid for making their committee pitches and believed in the cause. But so do millions of other Americans whose expertise on the U.S. Constitution is just as shallow.

Trotting out such celebrities in an effort to prop up a bill that can't stand on its own merits insults the intelligence of the public and cheapens the debate over a very serious issue.

Many Americans are rightly outraged at the thought of desecrating the very symbol of America, and fervently back a constitutional amendment that would override court decisions allowing that form of free speech. Often, flag desecration is no more than a silly expression of juvenile anger.

But if the First Amendment is to mean anything, it has to protect political expression that is stupid or offensive, not just expression that the majority finds innocuous.

It also must protect expression from former jocks and weight-loss pitchmen like Lasorda.

But the Constitution doesn't say Congress must affix any special significance to that expression, or that it must try to fool the rest of the country into doing so, either.

Feb. 26, 2000

Of freedom and flags

In 1878 Congress tried to ban the use of the American flag in advertising. More than a century later, many of our congressmen still don’t get it. You can’t protect the flag by limiting the freedom for which it stands -- all you can do is demean it.

The Senate is expected to vote later next month on a constitutional amendment to prohibit desecration of the American flag . It is believed that the measure is within a few votes of passage. Last June, the House passed the measure 305-124.

Let us say this right off: We have no use for the oafs who would desecrate the flag to make a point, political or otherwise. What we have is reverence for the First Amendment freedom that gives those people the right to be thoughtless.

The misguided patriotism of those pushing for this amendment is nothing less than a rebuke to the Founding Fathers who risked their lives for a political philosophy -- that Americans have an inalienable right to express themselves without the fear of government retribution. To limit that right is to erode the very cornerstone of our republic.

No doubt, the motives of those pushing this bill range from a sincere love of country to a cheap play for publicity. But regardless of the motives, the damage will be enormous.

And for what? Where is the problem? Robert Justin Goldstein, a political science professor at Oakland University in Michigan, has researched flag burning from 1777 to 1989. He came up with less than 45 incidents in those 212 years. Is that a problem that calls for a dilution of the Bill of Rights? Hardly.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that burning the American Flag is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. In fact, it may be the essence of free speech. By protecting that which offends us, we secure the freedom that protects us.

Those who would limit that freedom would do well to ponder these words from legendary Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."

The Daily Messenger
Canandaigua, N.Y.

We're as patriotic as the next newspaper, but we believe efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban flag-burning are a colossal waste of time, energy and money.

An alarming number of politicians in our nation's capital are taking the easy way out on this emotional issue and are wrapping themselves in the flag-burning issue in an obvious attempt to win points with the voters back home. We only hope any efforts to amend the Bill of Rights to outlaw flag-burning -- an extremely rare act -- are not distracting Congress from attending to the more pressing problems of our nation that truly do pose threats to our long-term well-being.

Flag-burning, however, is a safe and an emotional issue for re-election-obsessed politicians to embrace and to hide behind.

Don't get us wrong; we in no way endorse nor suggest flag-burning is proper behavior. Torching Old Glory is an abhorrent act, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is a form of free expression fully protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

One of the costs of freedom is having to tolerate legitimate forms of expression, regardless of how troubling they may be.

The high court's ruling has led to various efforts to alter the Constitution to ban flag-burning. The most recent attempt nearly succeeded last year when a proposed amendment failed by a mere three votes in the U.S. Senate.

Proponents of the flag-burning amendment have vowed to persevere, and legislation has been proposed again this year to rewrite the Bill of Rights to outlaw flag-burning. The impetus for the effort stems in part from intense lobbying by well-meaning groups, including the American Legion and an organization known as the Citizens Flag Alliance. The alliance has spent millions of dollars in trying to persuade Congress to limit Americans' First Amendment rights.

The irony of efforts to amend the Constitution to ban flag-burning is that the U.S. flag represents the many freedoms Americans rightfully cherish and the liberties so many Americans went to war to protect. The U.S. flag is an important symbol, but it is just that -- a symbol -- and attempts to protect it through a constitutional amendment send the message that the flag is more worthy of protection than our democratic freedoms.

It is important to put everything in perspective and to point out how insignificant a problem flag-burning is to our nation. A political science professor at Oakland University in Michigan, Robert Justin Goldstein, researched flag-burning through the years and came up with less than 45 incidents over the 212 year period between 1777 and 1989. This hardly constitutes a threat to our democratic well-being, and poses far less of a danger to democracy than does diluting the First Amendment.

The best way to deal with flag-burners is to ignore them. We encourage our legislators in Congress to do just that and move on to the more important issues of the day. We would be happy to supply them with a list.

Daily Freeman
Kingston, N.Y.
May 4, 1999

Supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment to allow Congress to ban flag burning like to paint their cause as a minor tinkering with the First Amendment to undo some mischief caused by the Supreme Court. But it is no such thing. Rather, it is a major, radical incursion into a Bill of Rights that has served our nation so well in its original form for more than 200 years.

The danger of the flag initiative is twofold — to the First Amendment itself and, by extension, to the entire Bill of Rights.

The flag amendment for the first time would authorize within the federal Constitution the suppression of the expression of an idea. And, significantly, the idea to be criminalized is not just any idea, but that of political dissent toward the federal government. In that respect, the proposal strikes directly to the heart of the very purpose of the First Amendment — the check of tyranny through the broadest range possible of political expression.

A little historical perspective is in order.

When it was adopted in 1791, the Bill of Rights was a radical departure from the prevailing model of omnipotent and relatively unrestrained government. But the Revolutionary generation had had quite enough of that from the British Crown, against which Americans had taken up arms.

A few years earlier, the restless, common subjects of King George III had expressed their political point of view in a variety of attention-getting ways, one of the most effective of which was the hanging in effigy of His Majesty and his ministers.

Looking back through the mist of time, it is easy to romanticize this act as some colorful fun had by colonial rustics. But this was more than plucky political theater around the Liberty Tree. Nothing so symbolized Great Britain as the king himself and his officers. The use of effigies, therefore, was highly provocative because it struck at political authority in a way that was intensely personal and explicitly violent. Indeed, a case can be made that the act of parading and doing violence unto effigies was far more extreme in its age than the burning of a flag is today. The rabble’s crude impudence achieved its purpose — it got people’s attention in the service of a political message.

Viewed against our revolutionary heritage, then, it strains credulity to believe that the Supreme Court’s protection of flag burning represents some sort of perversion of the true, original meaning of the First Amendment.

The Revolutionary generation knew well what unrestrained speech was all about — they had used it to remake their world. The proposed flag amendment, however, could do violence to more than just the First Amendment.

The proposed amendment — should it become law as is now predicted — could be but the nose of the camel entering the tent that houses so many of our precious liberties.

More such amendments to the Bill of Rights surely will follow the example. What will be crowded out will be the rights — many and varied — that the nation has enjoyed since its inception.

If the flag amendment becomes law, can anyone really believe that school prayer will not come closely behind? It will be called but a small initiative, a tinkering. But the subtext will have to do with the zealots who insist this is “a Christian nation.”

How about “pornography,” however broadly defined? (If Congress had had its constitutional way with recent legislation, the Starr report that almost toppled a president would have been classified as smut and forbidden on the Internet. Talk about the suppression of political ideas!)

And watch what you wish for, conservatives. Surely there are more than a few gun control activists out there who will make the argument that the Second Amendment could stand some similar “tinkering.” How about explicitly limiting the protection of arms to those that existed in 1791? Now, THAT’S “original intent”!

The truth is that, once a first nail has been driven into the hitherto immaculate corpus of the Bill of Rights, the rest will become fair game for every narrow, partisan cause that is given rise by the passing historical moment.

The fear here is that it could become hard to stop the bleeding away of our rights once it has begun.

The Post-Standard
Syracuse, N.Y.
May 25, 1998

Today is Memorial Day, a day to display the Stars and Stripes from your town or city hall, your village green, your front doorstep, in honor of the men and women who died protecting the liberties of the nation represented by that flag.

The flag symbolizes their ultimate sacrifice, its bold colors proclaiming loyalty and faithfulness, its proud display burnishing the names of our war dead in memory today and ever more.

In coming days, the flag will be at the center of an issue that holds the potential to divide and polarize people, to pit against one another those who cherish the flag and all it stands for. Ironically, the very banner celebrating the precious liberties won at such cost and protected with such sacrifice risks being used to restrict liberty and curtail the rights of citizens.

We're speaking, of course, of the proposed constitutional amendment on flag desecration.

In a sense, the proposal is much ado about nothing. For two centuries, states enacted their own laws banning flag-burning or other disrespectful or contemptuous uses of Old Glory. During all that time, historians have turned up fewer than 45 flag burnings. Most of them occurred during the Vietnam War, a time of unprecedented national turmoil.

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated state flag-protection laws in 1989 after it heard a case stemming from an incident at the 1984 Republican convention. Since then there has hardly been a rash of flag-burnings: about five a year, in a period where much attention has focused on the subject.

If flag laws went largely unnoticed all that time, what's the big deal? And if flag-burning itself is hardly a "burning" social issue, why the need for a constitutional amendment?

Good questions. But the answers are lost in a hail of verbiage suggesting that the only patriotic position is to drape the flag with statutory protection. "Today, because of the Supreme Court, the flag is just another piece of cloth to be burned and soiled with impunity," writes Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady of The Citizens Flag Alliance. "Later this year, the U.S. Senate will debate and vote on a constitutional amendment which will return to the American people the right to protect their flag."

With all due respect, that appealing argument completely misses the point. In the name of the people's "right" to protect the flag, this proposal would chip away at the first right protected by the Constitution: freedom of speech.

What does flag-burning have to do with freedom of speech? Well, consider those incidents during the Vietnam War. Those abuses of the flag were acts of protest, not verbal to be sure, but surely not pure acts of vandalism. It is equally certain that any act of flag-burning in this country will do its perpetrators and their cause considerably more harm than good. One reason that flag-burning is so rare in this country is that the flag is so universally revered and respected.

Advocates of the amendment argue that flag-burning will diminish love of country and respect for its principles. But couldn't one argue just the opposite: That the act of flag-burning is a symptom rather than a cause? In time of trouble, such an extreme act reflects the tenor of the times. Flag-burning doesn't erode patriotism, but rather sounds the alarm that all is not well at home.

The proposed amendment may be a non-solution to a non-problem. But its insidiousness should not be underestimated. Only one other time in U.S. history has there been an amendment to curtail liberty. That amendment, the 18th, launched the Prohibition era, and was soon seen as a dreadful mistake and repealed. Of 11,000 amendments proposed since 1791, only 23 made it through Congress, and six of those failed to win ratification by the required three-fourths of the state legislatures. Does this issue rise to the level of national urgency to merit inclusion in that elite list? The answer is obvious.

The very term "flag desecration" is troubling, implying there is something "sacred" inherent in the physical properties of the national banner. But this banner is no holy relic. It is the symbol of a civil society and a republic founded on principles of religious freedom and individual rights. It is to protect those freedoms and rights - even the right to unpopular "speech" - that our soldiers died.

Syracuse Herald-Journal
Syracuse, N.Y.
April 17, 1998

The U.S. Senate is poised, once again, to take action on a misbegotten fix to a problem that doesn't exist. The flag desecration amendment is a piece of shameless political demagoguery. If it were enacted, it would mark the first-ever erosion of the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the matter next month, with a vote of the full Senate tentatively slated for June 14, Flag Day. The House passed the amendment last year. If it is approved by two-thirds of the Senate (67 members) and ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures (38), it will become part of the basic law of the land.

Support for a flag amendment has gained momentum since 1989, when the Supreme Court ruled that flag-burning is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. The ruling didn't touch off a rash of flag-burning, but it angered a great many sincere and patriotic people. That anger was seized upon by some members of Congress who will waste no opportunity to reduce a complex issue to a slogan for political gain.

That's the thing about T-shirt and bumper-sticker patriotism. It's easy. It feels good. It takes no critical thinking. Being a patriot is a lot tougher when it means tolerating conduct you abhor for the sake of guarding the fundamental freedoms upon which this country was founded.

We understand and share the disgust of veterans who feel insulted when the flag is desecrated. But they did not fight for the flag. They fought for the "republic for which it stands." They fought for the freedoms that make our republic unique in the history of nations.

That republic has survived for more than two centuries without an amendment to protect the flag. But now, apparently, elected officials have detected a potentially deadly weakness in the collective national spirit. So constitutional protections of free expression must be scrapped. Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave.

For members of Congress and state legislatures, this issue is especially troublesome because of the simplistic way it is framed by the amendment's sponsors: If you're against the flag amendment , you must be in favor of burning the flag. So even though they know it's wrong, faint-hearted lawmakers will vote for it just because they don't want to be portrayed as flag abusers in the next campaign.

(When a candidate uses the flag as a prop to score cheap political points, isn't that "desecration"? Perhaps the amendment should include language that prohibits politicians from adorning their posters and campaign literature with the Stars and Stripes. Yeah, sure.)

Try as they will, elected officials cannot define patriotism for Americans. They cannot legislate what's in people's hearts. Most citizens would never dream of dishonoring the flag. But they stand in no real peril, nor does the country, from such dishonor when it occurs. But there is real danger in trashing the Constitution for mean political gain.

One of Adolph Hitler's first acts upon coming to power in Germany was to criminalize the burning of the Nazi flag. When the communist government of China took over Hong Kong, it immediately banned flag-burning. Is this the kind of public policy Americans want to emulate?

Let us hope that elected officials will summon the wit and courage to defeat this amendment. Let them recognize the sad irony in the notion of protecting the country's symbol of freedom by making Americans less free.

News & Record
Greensboro, N.C.
July 2, 1998

Just in time for Independence Day, the Senate Judiciary Committee has launched an attack on one of the things that makes America worth celebrating: our tradition of thinking for ourselves and making individual decisions about spiritual and intellectual matters.

By supporting a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban the burning of the U.S. flag , the senators opted for pandering over principle. In doing so they showed a disrespect for the Constitution, a national symbol of even greater importance than Old Glory itself.

It's easy to play to emotion and patriotic pride by wrapping oneself in the flag that has inspired Americans from Francis Scott Key to the Marines on Iwo Jima to everyday citizens pledging allegiance or singing the national anthem before a ballgame. I feel that emotion, too. Just this week I took a flag away from my 6-year- old son because he has not yet learned to treat it with proper respect.

But teaching respect and mandating it by law are very different things. There are a host of reasons why an amendment banning flag - burning is a bad idea. Some are practical and logical, but the most important is philosophical. How can our government tell free citizens what symbols they must revere, and how to revere them?

Some religious groups regard saluting the flag as idolatry. This amendment suggests they may have a point. Just using the word "desecrate" transfers a religious aspect to a secular object.

Enforcing any orthodoxy by law is un-American. We have no business requiring people to abide by a belief that they do not hold. Not every American practices the mainstream variety of civic religion. We have the right to be as patriotic - or unpatriotic - as we feel, and to express those feelings according to the dictates of our conscience.

To some people, even highly patriotic people, the flag may be only a piece of cloth, or a less important symbol than others. Should we ban burning copies of the Constitution? After all, every country has a flag , but our Constitution is ours alone.

A ban on burning the flag is also a ban on a particularly potent form of dissent. Our right to dissent is fundamental, and as long as it does not harm others, it should be protected. Burning the flag you love may be a profound and anguished political protest; disallowing that protest diminishes the flag more than burning it ever could.

Beyond these basic truths, a host of practical reasons make this amendment a non-starter. First of all, you don't amend the Constitution over trivial matters, and it's not like there's a big flag -burning epidemic out there. What a waste of money and time by our public servants.

If we ban flag desecration, how will desecration be defined? Will it be legal to exploit the flag for commercial purposes, as it is now? I would guess most car dealers fly Old Glory more to attract attention than out of patriotic feeling. Should there be a test of intentions before a business is allowed to display the flag , with only properly patriotic motivations allowed?

Should the flag be worn on T-shirts, and if so, do those T-shirts have to be kept clean and worn only by attractive people? What about an American flag patch on the seat of a pair of blue jeans?

What about using the flag for grotesque political purposes, at Klan rallies and on racist web-sites? That would seem to be a desecration to me. And what about that other flag that causes such a stir around these parts - the Confederate battle flag . Isn't that flag , even if it's flown by people who talk the "heritage not hate" line, an affront to the U.S. flag ? Didn't the men who marched beneath the Confederate flag seek to supplant the U.S. flag , to capture it in battle, to disgrace it and erase it? Why should the Confederate flag be allowed to fly if the U.S. flag is now regarded as so vulnerable?

The greatness of this country -the greatness symbolized by the flag itself - is inextricably bound up in our freedom to express ourselves and to make our own decisions. To curtail those freedoms for petty political gain is a sorry birthday present for a nation that deserves better.

North Dakota Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan will apparently hold key votes in an upcoming constitutional showdown.

Not unlike a bad penny, an amendment to make it unconstitutional to burn an American flag has once again reached the U.S. Senate. And according to an Associated Press story, the amendment is only three or four votes short of passing the Senate.

What is truly amazing is that this amendment is that close to passing. Reacting to the emotional outcry of various groups, it would appear that many senators are willing to jeopardize the Bill of Rights rather than face these outbursts.

There are many aspects of a free society that we find repugnant, reprehensible or simply disagreeable.

The fact remains that in order to assure those rights, we must love them so adamantly as to allow obtuse behavior and foreign ideas to exist.

We do not agree with a terrorist group called the Ku Klux Klan, the bigotry and consuming hate of neo-Nazis, the fundamentally flawed vision of Communism or the simple minded extremism of militant so-called militia groups. But we can hardly argue with their right to exist, assemble, play war, march, burn books, or do whatever keeps them happy.

As long as they do not infringe on another's rights, we do not have the right to legislatively eliminate their right to exist.

Education is the answer to aberrant behavior. Legislation is not.

This amendment is wrong. Conrad and Dorgan should once again have the fortitude to do what is right.

Even if it hurts.

The Fargo Forum
Fargo, N.D.

Amending the U.S. Constitution is serious business. The proposed flag desecration amendment is not. It's political business. It could even been seen as frivolous business if it weren't such a clumsy and dangerous initiative.

The U.S. Senate should reject the amendment, as it did twice before. North Dakota Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, who are seen as key votes on the measure, should vote no, as they did twice before.

The amendment is a solution looking for a problem. When was the last time flag-burners made headlines? The lunacy of the 1960s is history - history, we might add, that demonstrated the enduring strength of the flag. This is the quiet 1990s. Few (any?) people are burning or otherwise desecrating flags these days. And those who might would be relegated quickly to the nut fringe.

The amendment to the Bill of Rights would be very bad precedent. It would be the first time the nation altered the Bill of Rights. And for what? It makes no sense.

Despite what amendment supporters claim, the measure makes no distinction between the principles for which the flag stands and the physical piece of cloth. It does not define specifically desecration. The amendment, therefore, has the potential to be a legal nightmare, and to be used for unintended censorship and prosecutions.

Furthermore, most acts of flag burning already are punishable under existing public burning, larceny or public property statutes. The First Amendment allows punishment for acts of desecration performed to incite a riot or to produce danger to others. More laws are not necessary.

The power of the flag is in its meaning, not in its stitchery. That meaning embodies the most precious of American rights - the right to speak freely, to disagree loudly, to perform outrageous and foolish acts, such as burning a flag.

The flag and all it means cannot be destroyed by burning cloth. But any impulse to restrict the individual rights protected by the Bill of Rights violates the flag's enduring purpose. The flag amendment is such a violation and it should be rejected.

Minot Daily News
Minot, N.D.

Desecrating the American flag is a contemptible act. It shouldn't be taken lightly or ignored. But important as flag desecration is, an amendment to the Constitution would be inappropriate.

If one small voice can be silenced by amending the Constitution, it could also happen to any or all of us. The right to protest by burning a flag is the same as free speech. Those who swear that it isn't the same are opting for the easy way out of an uncomfortable situation.

Politicians have been held hostage by voters on issues that require unpopular decisions since the beginning of time. The flag amendment is only the latest example of such a situation. Patriotic Americans who believe that desecration of the American flag must be outlawed are letting an emotional reaction to something horrible overrule the well-reasoned conclusions of our Founding Fathers.

In 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were adopted. Known as the Bill of Rights, they have not been amended or abridged since.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Texas vs. Johnson contained the following: We can imagine no more appropriate response to burning a flag than by waving one's own ... We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in so doing we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

At home in Anytown, U.S.A., far from war or other troubles, with a job, a well-stocked pantry and a car to drive anywhere they want to go, most Americans do not understand what kind of injustice would cause a person to commit a horrible act such as flag desecration. But, that inability to understand does not give them the right to deny such an expression to someone who does find such an injustice.

Vietnam war protesters who burned the flag were criticized and attacked from all sides. They did, however, help bring the injustice of that war to the forefront among a generally complacent population. Although those protesters were blamed at the time for being part of the cause of America's inability to win the war, we now know that inability was due to the actions or inactions of high-level government officials, both civilian and military.

Maybe those flag-burners were rather like the canaries in the coal mines. They warned us of tragedy. They just did it with an outrageous action. Other outrageous actions were taken by Buddhist monks who burned themselves to death in public streets. Both of those horrendous kinds of actions raised people's awareness of the war and more and more questions began to be asked.

Maybe lives were saved by those actions. We'll never know.

• Today, a Vietnam prisoner of war is featured in a television ad opposing the amendment. He tells of his captors showing him pictures of flag-burning protesters and reiterates his reaction, "those pictures prove that we're right and that our country is strong. We're not afraid of freedom - even when we disagree."
• Today, many veterans groups say a flag-protection law would be struck down by the Supreme Court, therefore we must have an amendment. Such contradictory beliefs clearly expose what's wrong with an amendment.

Silence, speech and actions of protest are all valid ways to bring attention to issues or situations a person feels overwhelmingly passionate about. Allowing - or better yet, welcoming - controversy is a fundamental precept of the American governing process.

Democracy only works when all manner of expression is allowed.

Most final decisions are generally based on the will of the majority, but the input of dissenters, protesters and critics is such a valuable portion of the process that to do away with even the smallest part of it would be detrimental to American cultural life and governance.

North Dakota's two Democratic senators, Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, voted against the flag amendment the last time it reached the Senate. They should do the right thing, and vote against it again.

The Plain Dealer
Cleveland, Ohio

Feb. 28, 2000

Good intentions, bad amendment
The flag's desecrators threaten only a cloth symbol; those who would stop them threaten freedom

Again the drums sound the call to protect the Colors - to write respect for the Star Spangled Banner into the Constitution. Led by the American Legion and supported by politicians who run the spectrum from sincerely patriotic to cynically patronizing, the flag protection amendment now before the U.S. Senate has the rousing emotional appeal of a John Philip Sousa march. It’s a soul-stirring, banner-waving parade down a road paved with good intentions - and we all know the destination of roads thus paved.

What is so wrong with adding the following 17 words to the Constitution?

"The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

Everything - to those who understand these 10 words from the Bill of Rights:

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ..."

What’s the connection? Simply this: The desecration against which the proponents say they seek to protect our national banner is, at its heart, a form of political speech - that variety singularly enshrined and protected in our seminal document of governance.

What drives them is not the fate of those tens of thousands of tiny American flags passed out along Memorial Day parade routes, only to be dropped in gutters and trash cans when the bands have passed. They’re not concerned with the uncountable number of tattered, faded and soiled Stars and Stripes that, once run up myriad flagpoles, seem forever abandoned to the winds. They don’t even seem to care about the Red, White and Blue woven into the design of fashionable jackets.

No, what they seek to block is the burning of that flag in protest demonstrations, or its use as a doormat or worse at the odd art exhibit. They’re currently prevented from doing so by Supreme Court rulings that patiently explain, again and again, that such acts of disrespect, hateful though they may be, are symbolic speech. As former Justice Robert Jackson said, "Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."

And the Star Spangled Banner touches the loyal American heart as few other things can. From the misty sunrise when Francis Scott Key saw it borne on the Baltimore harbor breeze nearly 200 years ago to this morning’s raising at your neighborhood schoolhouse, the flag has taken on symbolic meaning far larger than any piece of multicolored cloth can contain.

You cannot hurt that larger flag . Oh, you can burn copies of it, you can drag them though the mud, you can revile those who respect it. But the essence of that emblem is beyond the reach of the desecrator. It is sanctified by the blood of patriots who died defending the very words that make vulnerable its physical incarnation.

Respect for its deeper meaning cannot be legislated. Such an amendment would be an assault on liberty more worthy of Cuba, one among the totalitarian states where flag burners face lengthy imprisonment. America does not need to reform itself after Fidel Castro’s "utopia." It does not need constitutional protection for the tangible emblem of its unique, intangible freedom.

Dayton Daily News
Dayton, Ohio

Don't trivialize Constitution

Has anybody around Dayton seen any flag-burning lately?

Two years ago, Congress fell three votes short of getting a two-thirds majority that would have sent a constitutional amendment to the states for ratification. The amendment would allow states to ban acts that desecrate the flag. Though this is aimed at squashing protesters who might burn the flag to get attention, such protests have been rare since the Vietnam War protest days, and they don't get much sympathy.

The most common desecration of the flag has been the use of its motif as underwear, costumes and other what-not.

The amendments that have become part of the law of the land have dealt with grander things — the right of women to vote, for example. Except for the Prohibition amendment, which was repealed, none of the additions to the Constitution have restricted personal liberties.

Keep the Constitution majestic. Respect for the flag can't be legislated anyway.

Tulsa World
Tulsa, Okla.
June 27, 1998

Surely most Americans agree that any act of disrespect for our flag is revolting. We hold this symbol dear and hate to see it dishonored.

Most Americans also hold dear the right to free expression. A strong tenet of the American way of life is tolerance of a wide variety of ideas and expressions, even odious ones.

Which philosophy should dominate: respect for an important symbol, or freedom of expression? That is the issue Congress is grappling with, and the end result may be a constitutional amendment that would not serve us well.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to outlaw the "physical desecration" of the Stars and Stripes.

The measure has passed the House and if it passes the Senate by a two-thirds majority, it goes to the states. Already 49 states have adopted measures supporting the amendment.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, argued that citizens have all kinds of means of expressing themselves -- voting, newspaper contributions, demonstrations -- and therefore don't need to burn or cut up flags.

"Mutilating our nation's great symbol of national unity is simply not necessary to express an opinion," Hatch said. "Those individuals who have a message to the country should not confuse their right to speak with the conduct of desecrating a symbol that embodies the ideals of a nation that Americans have given their lives to protect."

The more cynical might view the comments of Hatch and others as so much election-year posturing. But to carry Hatch's argument to the extreme, nobody ever needs to express himself politically. All humans need is sustenance, shelter and companionship. The point is that free expression is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, and one that we want for a variety of reasons.

The proposed amendment states "the Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." Imagine the difficulties courts will have in deciding what constitutes desecration. Is wearing boxer shorts made of stars and stripes desecration?

It is tempting to protect an important national symbol. But surely most Americans would agree that it is a symbol that is strong enough and powerful enough to withstand even the most contemptible acts of disrespect

The Register-Guard
Eugene, Ore.
May 14, 1999

Flag burning, again

If you made a list of burning issues before the current Congress, flag burning would not be among them. A proposed constitutional amendment to allow federal laws to prohibit desecration of the American flag is a truly big deal to only a small group of people. To the majority, including many members of Congress who support the proposed amendment, it is a low priority.

Why? Partly because there, is no epidemic of flag burning across the United States. The Citizens' Flag Alliance (largely a creature of the Americm Legion) claims to have documented 72 instances of flag desecration since 1994. But People for the American Way, an opposition group, reviewed those cases and concluded that a majority involved criminal acts such as vandalism, theft or disorderly conduct, all of which are punishable under existing laws without any change in the Constitution. About 20 cases, however, involved an expression of political dissent, the kind of speech the U.S. Supreme Court had in mind when it held that flag burning was constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.

That case, Texas vs. Johnson, was decided in 1989. Since then, several attempts have been made to will congressional approval of a constitutional amendment permitting laws against flag desecration. The House has been supportive, giving proposed amendments more than the two-thirds vote necessary for approval. But the Senate has always been a few votes short. The last full-fledged effort was in 1995.

Another try is being mounted this year because amendment supporters think that as a result of the 1998 election they might have enough senators on their side to send an amendment out for ratification by the states. A vote is expected soon.
We hope the campaign fails again. Not because we support flag burning. When done for political reasons, desecration of the flag is calculated to offend. And it does offend the vast majority of Americans.

But what a great thing to live in a country where burning the flag is legally interpreted as a form of political speech, behavior for which you cannot be thrown in jail. The basic idea of freedom of speech remains radical by historical standards and is constantly under attack.

By letting its citizens deface flags for political reasons, the country abides by its Constitution and upholds the principles of the First Amendment. If it begins punishing those who physically attack flags, that won't be a tragedy. But it will be a disappointment. In a real sense, the country will have let the Constitution down.

Ironically, criminalizing flag burning would also make that act much more attractive to those who are seeking a way to create a spectacle and call attention to their complaints against American society.

As a practical matter, if the Citizens' Flag Alliance and its supporters really want to minimize the amount of political flag desecration that occurs in this country, they should abandon their campaign for a constitutional amendment. The average protester will get much more mileage out of defying a law than just burning a piece of cloth.

The Oregonian
Portland, Ore.

The flag's just fine

Our cherished symbol of liberty is strong enough to withstand rare instances of desecration

A constitutional amendment against desecration of the American flag' is by all accounts tremendously popular. It is also unnecessary and unworkable.

Unnecessary because there has been no wave of flag-burnings afflicting the nation since 1989 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws making it a crime to desecrate the flag. Unworkable, because those wanting to show disrespect for Old Glory can always skirt the ban - if they're inclined to try - by transferring their attention to something close to but not quite a flag, for instance.

Yet once again a proposed constitutional amendment has been introduced to allow Congress to pass a law against the physical desecration of the U.S. flag. Supporters say they again have enough votes to pass the measure in the House by the necessary two-thirds votes and are working on the Senate, where an amendment failed narrowly in 1995. They also expect the amendment to gain quick ratification by the states.

With those supporters, we see the flag as a splendid symbol of our nation, our cherished freedoms and our representative government. Those few people who think they can gain credence for whatever cause they believe in by burning or spitting on the flag are only earning themselves general enmity. That may be why this form of protest is so rare.

Still, one of those cherished freedoms is the right - enshrined in the First Amendment -- to dissent from the majority view. And while the flag is a symbol of our nation, the Bill of Rights is the bedrock of the freedoms that flag stands for. There is simply no compelling need to begin modifying the First Amendment merely because a few people's effort to gain attention disgusts us.

The best way to honor the flag is to recognize that the republic for which it stands is solid enough and so thoroughly dedicated to liberty and justice for all that it can tolerate an occasional act of disrespect.

"Mutilating our nation’s great symbol of national unity is simply not necessary to express an opinion. Those individuals who have a message to the country should not confuse their right to speak with the conduct of desecrating a symbol that embodies the ideals of a nation that Americans have given their lives to protect."
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah
chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee

By proposing a constitutional amendment to protect the flag, members of Congress have again tried to confuse the symbols of liberty with the genuine article.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the proposal’s sponsor, approved a measure that would write into the Constitution an amendment banning desecration of the flag.

The willingness to elevate the flag, a symbol, over the freedoms it stands for demonstrates a disturbing lack of discernment – as well as a determination to make law where none is needed. Given the rhetoric that accompanies each attempt to gild the flag, you would think there was an epidemic of flag burning. There isn’t.

But every couple years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning was a protected form of speech, Congress has rolled out an amendment to outlaw that one form of government criticism.

So far, common sense has prevailed, if narrowly. But this year, say supporters, there may be just enough votes in the Senate to give the measure the two-thirds majority it needs to be sent to the states for ratification.

That’s a step down the path of dangerous precedents. Once we create a special protection for the flag, what other symbols, or parts of the republic become off-limits for criticism or debate?

Then there is the timing of the flag burning amendment. Coming just before an election season, an amendment to protect the Stars and Stripes rings as a hollow gesture by a Congress that falters when faced with real challenges: a tobacco industry that wants to enslave our kids to nicotine addiction, or the soft money or special interests that bankroll election campaigns. The list is long, and Congress has little to show for it.

Burning a flag destroys a piece of cloth. Placing restrictions on the First Amendment tears at the fabric of our founding principles and trivializes the document that outlines our freedoms. That’s the danger in this amendment; distracting the voters from how little Congress has accomplished is just a side effect. Americans shouldn’t let themselves be taken in. The real show, the status quo, is still going on behind the curtains.

The Patriot News
Harrisburg, Pa.
Feb. 22, 2000

Keep freedom flying
Desecration of the flag is distasteful, but not so bad as outlawing protest through an unwise amendment

When is the last time you heard of someone desecrating the American flag?

If you can’t remember, neither can we. It is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination.

But that is of no moment to supporters of a constitutional amendment to criminalize flag desecration, who plan to bring it up in the U.S. Senate next month.

This is always a close battle in the Senate, and this time the expected March 28 vote arrives with the amendment having been already approved by the House last year.

We don’t like seeing the flag desecrated any more than any other American. It’s our flag, too, after all. Many of us in this business have served under it, flown it and defended the basic principles upon which it stands more times than we can count.

But the flag remains only a symbol, albeit of something grand and wonderful, to be sure. Someone can come along and treat the flag in a manner that 99 percent of us find offensive, but there will still be millions of other flags and nothing really will be different except our distaste for those who would trample "Old Glory."

But there is only one U.S. Constitution, a living document on which our rights as free, self-governing people rest. Desecrate that, as this proposed amendment would do, and something fundamental in this country will have changed.

For more than 200 years we have been self-confident enough and wise enough as a nation to tolerate the few acts of flag desecration that occur each year. Is it that we’ve lost that self-confidence and wisdom that we must now make flag desecration a constitutional offense?

We don’t think so. For more than two centuries, through wars and depression, through good times and bad, America has managed just fine without the burden of a flag-desecration amendment.

Let’s keep it that way.

You can tell it's an election year by the proposals circulating through Congress. Last week the House trotted out the religious persecution bill, which, despite the opposition of a number of churches and religious organizations, came within 65 votes of passage.

This time around, the election panderers have proposed a Constitutional amendment banning flag desecration.

At the heart of the matter is whether or not desecrating the flag is an expression of free speech. The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 and again in 1990 that state and federal laws against destroying or damaging the flag violated free speech.

The ruling angered veterans' groups, which demanded some form of protection for the flag. Thus was begun a movement to amend the Constitution for Old Glory's sake. The problem is that outlawing flag desecration infringes on political speech.

Think about that for a moment. The flag amendment crowd says it's not about free speech. Yet, burning the flag clearly ignites their passions against those who express contempt either for this country or for the policies of the country. If that's not speech, what is?

No matter how repugnant people find flag desecration, the court has repeatedly ruled that it is a form of political speech. An amendment, even one strictly worded, will still conflict with the First Amendment. The amendment currently making its way through Congress in time for Flag Day is not a strictly worded document. If approved, it could hold those who sew flag emblems to their rear pants pockets guilty of flag desecration.

It is interesting to note that since the Supreme Court's ruling nearly a decade ago, very few flags have been burned. Often, the desecration of a flag is an act of vandalism, for which laws already exist to punish the offenders, and not a political statement.

Ironically, those who desecrate the flag are the ones who ought to embrace it, for they are the ones who are protected by what the American flag stands for.

We don't need an amendment to protect the flag. We need people who, through words and deeds, stand up for liberty and freedom for all Americans - even those with whom they disagree.

March 12, 2000

A lofty cause
While a flag-burning ban sounds justifiable, the rejection of such an effort is much more in line with the constitution.

Part of what makes this country great is our tolerance of those whose ideas differ from ours -- whose ideas perhaps even offend our sensibilities.

It’s called free speech, and Americans have died to defend it. Now, once again, many of those who purport to honor these fallen veterans are trying to curtail this important freedom -- by convincing Congress to enact a Constitutional amendment banning desecration of the American flag.

Backers of the proposal have regrouped after recent legislative defeats and once again are aggressively pushing the Senate to approve the measure. They have set March 28 as the target date for a Senate vote; the day has been chosen because if falls during the Washington convention of the American Legion, the primary organization backing the amendment.

We understand the emotion behind the drive. For patriotic-minded citizens, there can be few things more offensive than watching Old Glory go up in smoke on some television news report.

But the fact is that the vast majority of those who want to ban flag burning have only seen the flag desecrated this way on TV -- there is not now, nor has there ever been, an epidemic of wild-eyed revolutionaries burning flags in the street.

Yet even if there was, so what? The physical act of burning the flag is merely a method by which those who dislike this country and what it stands for may express their disaffection.

Is it offensive? You bet. But just because we find this form of speech repugnant is no reason to ban it.

We should, instead, celebrate a system that permits even the most repellent forms of speech as a triumph. Banning this form of speech would make a mockery of the very instituion that flag - amendment supporters want to protect.

And it would send us down the same dangerous path those early patriots fought so hard to save us from.

Philadelphia Daily News
Philadelphia, Pa.

A basic and revolutionary ideal underpinning the Republic is that you can say what you want to -- whether the powers that be like it or not.

This principle and its vigorous defense by generations of U.S. presidents, legislators, judges and servicemen and servicewomen are vital to what stands between us as a nation and, say, a Tiananmen Square massacre, the Stalinist purges or Argentina's dirty
war.

The classic limit on our constitutional right of free speech came from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech doesn't let you cry "Fire!" in a crowded theater if there isn't one.

Yet nearly two-thirds of the U.S. Senate is poised to take the position that desecration of the American flag is a threat so potent and dreadful as to deserve a constitutional amendment to let Congress outlaw flag desecration. It is a few votes from being sent to the state legislatures for possible ratification.

Can so many senators really believe the Republic is so puny? Not on James Madison's grave, they don't.

They do know this emotional issue plays well with voters. But the fire they are playing with is Americans' freedom from government control.

Our system of government rests not just on the Constitution and other written laws, but on precedent. The very dangerous precedent at stake here is a move by government to limit one of our core freedoms -- the Bill of Rights -- to satisfy the fear and loathing of the majority at a particular time.

Do not forget that the guarantees in those first 10 amendments to the Constitution were integral to winning approval of the Constitution. Madison and others greatly feared the power of unfettered government; that was why our revolution came to pass.

Laws against desecration of the national flag exist in many countries. In Latin America, for example, the flag is commonly seen as the embodiment of the nation; they teach that in schools. Of course, coup-prone armed forces there often also regard themsel
ves as the sine qua non of the nation -- as the oldest and highest authority.

No, opponents aren't for desecrating the U.S. flag. Instead, they are defenders of our philosophy and system, in which ultimate authority resides with the people and in their freedom.

The minority of senators with backbone and vision on this issue (so far, neither of Pennsylvania's) ought to deny this foolish amendment the needed two-thirds majority.

And if you ever have the sorrow of seeing an American flag set afire, put aside your anger and recognize that you are watching freedom's light burning bright.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh, Pa.
April 18, 1998

In politics, some ideas improve over time. Just the opposite has happened with a proposal that the U.S. Constitution be amended to allow for the criminal punishment of protesters who desecrate the American flag. Still, there is another push in Congress to approve such an unnecessary amendment.

The idea of a constitutional amendment appeared like a flush of anger in 1989, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled narrowly in a Texas flag-burning case that laws against desecration of Old Glory violated the free-speech protections of the First Amendment. A year later the court gave a similar heave-ho to a federal flag-desecration statute.

However unpopular those decisions were, their logic was irrefutable. Hateful as the burning of a U.S. flag may be, it is no more hateful than the sentiment it expresses: loathing for this country and what it stands for. Yet, unlike so many other societies, the United States prides itself on protecting even the most marginal and despised political message.

And make no mistake: It was the message of flag-burning that offended critics of the Supreme Court's decisions, not the physical destruction of a piece of cloth.

The logic of the court's decisions has not changed, but something else has. At the time of the 1989 ruling, fears were expressed that flag-burning, an exceedingly rare form of protest, might gain popularity because of the Supreme Court's constitutional green light. Such apprehensions strengthened the political hand of politicians who demanded that the Constitution be amended to overturn the flag rulings.

But it's 1998, not 1989 or 1990. The dreaded epidemic of flag-burning has yet to materialize. On the other hand, there has been time for tempers to cool, and for some critics of the court decisions to develop sober second thoughts about cluttering up the First Amendment with a solution to a nonexistent problem. A flag-burning amendment has failed in two previous Congresses.

But now the bandwagon is rolling again, and it is considered possible that Congress will send a flag amendment to the states for ratification. The House of Representatives approved a flag amendment in 1995, and the Senate Judiciary is expected to vote on the amendment before Flag Day, June 14, before sending it to the floor where a two-thirds vote is necessary for approval. Both of Pennsylvania's senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, supported a flag amendment in 1995. They should reconsider.

It is difficult, and not just on Flag Day, for a politician to oppose an amendment that many Americans see as indistinguishable from patriotism and respect for America's war dead. But, as revered a symbol as it is, the flag does not confer freedom on Americans; the Bill of Rights does.

It too deserves to be saluted, and the way for the Senate to do that is to abandon this amendment.

The meaning and the material of the American flag are inextricably entwined in the minds of many Americans. They view an assault on the flag as a physical attack on the values that provide the fabric of the nation. That is why flag -burning is such a pointed protest - though also an exceedingly rare one.

Yet those who would have a constitutional amendment allowing the punishment of flag "desecration" are mounting a frontal assault on the very rights the flag symbolizes. It is the right to protest - even to the point of burning the flag - that marks this as the freest nation on Earth.

Twice the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that burning the flag as a political protest is just as protected as the underlying message would be if it were contained in a slogan or pamphlet.

Those who are supporting a flag amendment obviously don't see it that way. Some advocates of the amendment argue that laws punishing flag -burning are restrictions on action, not expression. But it is the anti-American message of flag -burning, not the physical combustion, that offends them.

Lawmakers in Washington understand that this issue resonates with voters despite the lack of real-life flag burnings. Last summer the House approved a constitutional amendment that would ban the physical desecration of the flag . The Senate is expected to take up the measure later this year. We hope that body plays its traditional role of braking emotionally appealing but misguided initiatives.

The flag amendment , at first blush, might seem like harmless legislative pandering. But, if approved, it would be an unprecedented qualification of the free-speech protections of the First Amendment

The amendment is close to winning the two-thirds vote needed for approval, and every state but one is expected to ratify the amendment if Congress approves it.

Free expression remains one of this nation's most cherished rights. Individuals may disagree with one with another, but all should stand together to defend our liberty to express our views, not just politely but passionately and provocatively.

That's why the flag amendment is antithetical to the nation's founding principles. It doesn't protect our rights; it diminishes them.

Daily Times
Primos, Pa.

By Steve Lambert

Flag amendment's intolerable price

Three votes.

It's all that separates free speech as we know it from its most imposing threat in more than 200 years.

At issue: A proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, one version of which has passed the U.S. House of Representatives while another barrels its way through the Senate.

If backers are successful in getting the necessary 67 Senate votes -- 64 have committed so far -- the amendment would go out to all 50 states for consideration.

On the surface, it might seem an easy call. Flag burning is a stupid, senseless and horribly offensive act -- one that this newspaper, which features the flag symbol in its nameplate, would never condone.

And yet, it is that sense of patriotism -- and our indelible support of free speech as the most precious and fundamental of human rights -- that makes it impossible to defend any such amendment.

By making flag desecration a crime, we give greater value to a piece of cloth, a symbol, than the rights of the people whose freedom it represents. That's not the kind of America our founding fathers envisioned when they crafted the First Amendment, which allows you and us to express ourselves freely and openly regardless of our politics.

Flag burning is a form of expression. Radical, yes. Profoundly unpatriotic, without a doubt. But by banning it, we commit an even greater sin.

For if unpopular forms of expression aren't protected, then nothing is. Make one exception, redraw the line even a little, and the die is cast.

It's a precedent we cannot afford to set.

Nor can we look upon the symbolic desecration of a flag, regardless of that cloth's honor or importance, as more vile or punishable than a Klan march or any other form of expression that insults one's race or religion.

As long as those acts are peaceful, they're protected by the First Amendment.

Sixty-four senators disagree with us. But don't disregard their political motivations. A formal vote isn't expected until sometime in early fall -- right before the November elections.

In the meantime, backers of the flag amendment will be lobbying hard for those three swing votes.

They mustn't get them. We cannot permit ourselves, or vote-starved lawmakers, to get carried away with emotion, politics or a misguided sense of patriotism.

To do so would make a mockery of the very institution flag-amendment supporters want to protect. And send us down the same dangerous path those brave early patriots fought so hard to save us from.

Argus Leader
Sioux Falls, S.D.
May 13, 1999

Flag-burning amendment steals liberty

This week, Chinese citizens burned the American flag. They were demonstrating their outrage over the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. It was a political protest.

The United States did not tremble and fall because people in a foreign land set afire Old Glory. Although it happens rarely, our nation isn’t weakened if protesters in our country burn the flag, either.

We revere what the American flag stands for, not the cloth it is made of. There is no need to constitutionally protect the material from abuse. The sense of freedom and liberty it represents will always live in our souls, regardless of what happens to it.

The desire by some to amend the Constitution to protect the flag is based on emotion. Many Americans, especially members of the military, hold great allegiance to the flag.

But there’s a certain spitefulness to it, too. It’s the I’m-more-patriotic- than-you-are factor. It rallies to the cause those who haven’t thought about the ramifications of reducing our right to political protest. It throws a scare into politicians who fear they’ll be painted as anti-American if they don’t vote to "protect the flag."

It’s likely that 99.4 percent of Americans love and respect the flag. It’s possible that 0.2 percent don’t care one way or another about it. The rest are really insufferable individuals but until now have been tolerated (and prosecuted under other laws) because it is understood that when you damage the right of one minority to protest, you weaken the rights of all.

It is likely that the Flag Protection Amendment will pass the House. It may even pass by a wider margin than it did in the 105th Congress. Then, the Senate stood in the breach, protecting citizens’ right to free speech. But each year, through intimidation or attrition, the number of votes changes. This year is no different.

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the amendment 11-7 along party lines, except for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who voted in favor. Thirty-four senators are needed to stop the amendment. Most senators have made their positions clear on this matter. However, some may be swayed.

Recently, both North Dakota senators announced they will vote against the amendment. Senators Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said that they prefer to support legislation to make flag burning illegal rather than amending the Constitution to protect the flag. Conrad and Dorgan have long been considered swing votes on this matter. Their statements give hope that the matter will not pass. However, when the Flag Amendment comes to the floor, the vote will be extremely close to reaching the needed two-thirds majority.

Great harm can come from passing this amendment to the Constitution. This nation was founded on the concept of individual freedom. There should never come a time when we start restricting liberty in the name of patriotism.

Austin American-Statesman
Austin, Texas
July 10, 1998

It was perhaps fitting that an actor and a television pitchman were summoned to rally enthusiasm for the flag-burning amendment in the Senate this week.

The fevered campaign to amend the Bill of Rights for the first time in two centuries already carried a certain surreal aura. A witness list that included baseball manager and diet-commercial star Tommy Lasorda and "Dukes of Hazzard" actor John Schneider merely added to the effect.

The hearing on the proposal, which would authorize Congress to outlaw desecration of the U.S. flag , was billed as "informational only" by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. The committee has already approved the proposal, as has the House. State legislatures, which would have to ratify the proposal, have indicated their eagerness to do so. Because it looks, superficially, like the patriotic thing to do, senators are falling all over themselves to become co-sponsors.

Despite the widespread enthusiasm, this unprecedented tinkering with the First Amendment and its free speech guarantees is probably risky and unwise. One of the few anti- amendment voices in the Senate , Sen. Russell Feingold, D.-Wis., acknowledged that he was taking "the most politically unpopular position I could take." But, he said, Congress is overeager to use constitutional amendments "as the first and only solution to society's problems."

In the case of flag desecration, it isn't even clear that a major problem exists. The few incidents reported annually are certainly troubling, but hardly merit risking unforeseen consequences by altering the country's cherished guarantees of personal freedoms.

Disrespectful flag -burning (as opposed to the officially sanctioned burnings that retire old flags) may not quite meet Lasorda's depiction as "one of the worse things that can happen in America," but it surely turns the stomachs of patriots. It is possible, however, to condemn both flag desecration and the Hatch proposal. The Bill of Rights needs as much, if not more, protection than the flag .

The Dallas Morning News
Dallas, Texas

Fact check:

The Bill of Rights has been amended how many times?

(a) Twice. (b) 26 times. (c) 10 times. (d) never.

If you answered "d," you're right. The U.S. Constitution has been amended 17 times since 1789, when the Bill of Rights was approved. But the Bill of Rights has never been touched. Principles like protecting free speech and guaranteeing religious liberty have been considered too vital to alter.

Some legislators, however, want to break that wise precedent. The Senate could vote this month on an amendment abridging the First Amendment's free speech clause.

The effort stems from a 1989 Supreme Court ruling, which held that the Constitution protects flag burning as free speech. Since then, some legislators have attempted to change the First Amendment, making flag desecration illegal.

The U.S. House approved such an effort in 1995. The Senate defeated the amendment then, but only by three votes.

Flag amendment supporters hope for a different Senate result this year. And a strong symbolic argument supports their cause. The flag symbolizes our freedom. Desecrating that proud beacon is despicable.

But limiting freedom to protect freedom is not sensible either. Especially when flag desecrations are rare, only 36 since 1990.

Of course, there is the problem of what exactly constitutes flag desecration. Does that mean wearing a flag on a T-shirt? Does that include when a flag catches fire accidentally, as happened at one sporting event after a fireworks display?

Some conservatives, including columnists Cal Thomas and William Safire, oppose amending the Bill of Rights. And GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell won re-election last year, even though amendment supporters targeted him for opposing their bill in 1995.

Texas Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison should follow this lead and oppose efforts to amend the Bill of Rights, Desecrating flags is a profane act, no doubt. But so is tinkering with the Bill of Rights.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth, Texas
May 12, 1998

James Madison only needed 45 words to write an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right to free speech.

In an act of misguided patriotism, Congress once again is trying to tinker with those words.

The very people who should have the highest respect for the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment are attacking it. Supported primarily by Republicans with a smattering of Democrats thrown in, the proposal before the Senate would allow Congress to ``pass laws prohibiting the desecration of the United States Flag. The vote is expected this summer; the House of Representatives has already passed the measure.

Flag-burning, no matter how repugnant all red-blooded, God-fearing, mother-loving Americans find it, is symbolic political speech. In this country, that's protected.

Who would want it any other way? Americans don't put people in jail for protesting — we leave that kind of abhorrent behavior to the likes of China.

Amending the amendment has failed before because the wisdom of the court prevailed. The pity is that it's being tried again. And Texas Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison are standing so deep in the political posturing that goes hand in hand with wrapping oneself in the flag that they’ve both signed on as proposal sponsors.

Practical considerations aside — flag-burning is a marginal issue at best — the most troubling aspect of this latest folly is the number of politicians who apparently believe that woven stands of color are more important than the freedoms they represent.

If Americans allow Congress to take away part of their basic rights, what's next? Any attempt to limit the freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights must be viewed with trepidation.

Call Gramm and Hutchison. Tell them to re-read the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Then tell them to leave the First Amendment alone.

Burning the Flag
April 28, 1999

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to convene at 9:30 a.m. today for the latest attempt to restrict the Bill of Rights.

For the third time in five years, Washington lawmakers are considering a resolution that would make physical desecration of a U.S. flag a criminal offense, subject to jail time and fines.

Should this effort prove successful, it will be the first time in history that one of the rights outlined in those unprecedented 10 amendments will be altered.

Never mind that in more than 200 years — from 1777, when Old Glory was adopted as a symbol of liberty for a new nation, until 1989 — only 45 reported cases of flag burning were documented. Most of those occurred during the turbulent Vietnam War years.

Dismiss the committee testimony given last week by Baptist minister Nathan Wilson of West Virginia, who said the proposed law would infringe on the establishment clause of the First Amendment by allowing a government, not a religion, to determine what is

Forget that the U.S. Supreme Court — in a 1989 ruling that stemmed from a flag burning on the steps of Dallas City Hall during the Republican National Convention — has already determined that barring the act, no matter how repugnant, was contradictory to the First Amendment protection of free speech.

One of the most spectacular movies ever made about the realities of war and the fight for freedom begins and ends with a close-up on the indisputable, internationally recognized symbol of this nation — the American flag.

"Saving Private Ryan" was about the struggle for liberty, the noble quest for freedom that at times finds human committing ignoble acts.

The last thing any newspaper would advocate is the wanton destruction of a symbol that represents the freedom that makes independent media voices possible. But living in a free nation means protecting everyone's right to expression, even if that expression is ugly and offensive.

Houston Chronicle
Houston, Texas
July 11, 1998

Flag -burners and those who otherwise desecrate our flag rank right down there at the bottom of the pond with other scum. There is hardly an expression of disdain for this grand nation that is more despicable. It's the lowest, most vile and reprehensible comment one can make about America.

Yet the law that rules the nation that stands free beneath that honorable flag - the U.S. Constitution and, particularly, the First Amendment - guarantees that even pond scum have a right to express their opinion here.

Yes, it's a liberty the pond scum are free to abuse. And that sticks in the craw of many, including one Chronicle reader who phoned here this past week to admit, "I hate the First Amendment ."

It's that kind of misguided patriotism that, in truth, poses a larger threat to our so-very-precious freedom of expression than do a match and can of lighter fluid.

The latter torch cloth, the former would torch the Constitution.

And, as well-meant as their efforts are, those in Congress who yet again are pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban flag -burning are plain wrong.

They called out the likes of baseball manager Tommy Lasorda this week. Lasorda gave moving testimony about a famous 1976 incident at Dodger Stadium in which Chicago Cubs outfielder Rick Monday snatched a flag from two protesters who had doused it with lighter fluid and were prepared to ignite it in center field.

Calling the act "one of the most heroic acts ever to take place on the field during a Major League baseball game," Lasorda testified that he was equally struck by the response of the fans, who stood up spontaneously and sang "God Bless America."

God bless those fans and Rick Monday. Lasorda's recounting made headlines in newspapers all over this great nation. It was a reminder of the importance of the flag as a symbol of everything great about America.

Almost ignored in coverage of the same hearings, however, was the testimony of the not-so-famous Marvin V. Stenhammar, a disabled veteran from Asheville, N.C. He urged the Senate to vote against the flag -burning amendment , saying, "Flags, no matter how honored, do not have rights. People do. Please protect them."

It doesn't have the same headline appeal. It doesn't allow the politicians to stir up the patriotic fires. It doesn't get the blood flowing like Rick Monday's gallant rescue. But Stenhammar's quiet message is the plain, unvarnished reason a flag -burning amendment to the Constitution would be unconstitutional and bad for America.

Another Senate vote is expected soon on a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag. The effort has failed several times in the past, but a shift of just a handful of senators would send it to the states, where indications are that it would be ratified.

Most opponents of the amendment have based their arguments on philosophical grounds - that flag-burning is speech, and never has the Constitution been amended to take rights away from individuals, and to do so would be a step in the wrong direction.There is merit in that argument, but obviously it isn't convincing enough to persuade the majority of Americans who are willing to give up a sliver of their freedom to keep people from destroying the symbol of American ideals that they cherish.

Another good reason for opposing the amendment is that it isn't necessary. Flag desecration rarely happens. Still, those who are passionate about the flag would argue that if an amendment would stop even one incident, it would be worth it.

There is one pragmatic argument against the amendment, though, that can't be refuted: It won't work. And not only would it not prevent the act, the more likely result is that in the short term it would lead to more incidents of flag desecration by people who are angry over the assault on their liberties.

What, exactly, would an amendment banning flag desecration mean? A dictionary definition of desecration is "to violate the sacredness of." The vagueness of that concept is extraordinary, and spelling it out necessarily would fall to federal prosecutors.And what would an earnest prosecutor use as his guide? Obviously most people would agree that burning a flag in protest would be desecration. But what about wearing a flag on an article of clothing? Presumably wearing a flag on the pocket of one's shirt would be permissible, but would having Old Glory on the seat of one's pants desecrate it, and, if so, would it be permissible to have it on the side or front? Where exactly would the acceptable line on the clothing be drawn? Most businesses that display flags do so out of patriotism, but do some put up giant flags as a way of attracting customers? Is that not violating its sacredness?

If burning a flag amounts to desecration, does simply pouring gasoline on it? What about drenching it in alcohol, or a soft drink? Does a flag have to be physically desecrated, or would people be prosecuted for verbally desecrating it, or making offensive gestures at it? If not, why not? Is refusing to stand when the flag passes during a parade desecration?Could napkins be adorned with American flags? What about paper for rolling cigarettes? Or toilet paper?And what exactly is a flag? If someone burns a flag that has an extra star or stripe, or is distorted in its dimensions, is it a real American flag? And would that person be criminally liable?

These are just a few of the possible questions. People with no thought of desecrating the flag might find themselves branded as offenders, and those intent on tweaking the noses of patriotic Americans would think of many ways to legally disrespect the flag while still managing to offend.

The hard truth is that a flag desecration amendment would be impossible to enforce, and if we insist on trying anyway, then it is the Constitution that we will desecrate.

Perennial measure should be put to rest

Here they come again: the flag -waving sunshine patriots in Congress, many of whom dodged the war of their youth, trying to pass a constitutional amendment to outlaw desecration of the U.S. flag .

This has become an perennial congressional ritual.

And just as regularly this newspaper has opposed the amendment.

The flag is a precious symbol of American freedoms and values, but it is only a symbol.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 ruled against a Texas flag desecration law saying that burning a flag , though loathsome, is a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the high court said, "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents."

Why cannot members of Congress leave the emotional issue alone? Is their purpose pure political demagoguery?

A flag -burning ban sounds seductive. After all, most Americans abhor the idea of burning a flag .

That's why such an act seldom is seen.

Flag -burning is particularly abhorrent to veterans who defended the flag in battle and who saw their friends die by their sides.

But they fought not for the flag but for the way of life it symbolizes and the Constitution that protects political expression.

Three times in the last five years Congress has considered amendments that would allow states to punish those who burn flags . Each time, the measure has failed in the Senate.

Once again, for the sake of what the flag symbolizes, the measure should be defeated.

Standard-Examiner
Ogden, Utah

When someone burns the flag of the United States, it so offends the public that an amendment to the Constitution is required to make it a crime.

That’s the contention of Sen. Orrin Hatch, whose proposed constitutional amendment is awaiting debate and a vote in the Senate. The House has already passed the amendment, but the Senate has always been a few votes shy until now, its supporters believe.

Here’s what Hatch’s amendment says: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." If two-thirds of the Senate passes it, the amendment will proceed to the states for ratification, where it is virtually guaranteed its 38-state approval.

Why now? Didn’t we all decide this was so much grandstanding during the 1992 presidential campaign, when George Bush latched onto the issue — even as wife Barbara wore a scarf patterned after the U.S. flag? Didn’t we suspect that it was more of the same when the Republican Congress added a flag amendment to its ballyhooed "Contract with America" after the 1994 elections?

There’s nothing coincidental about ‘92, ‘94 and ‘98 being election years. Supporters of the flag amendment hope to time the debate and vote in the Senate to just before Election Day, forcing those on the fence to go their way.

We understand the passion around this issue. Most Americans are distressed when people burn, trample or otherwise show disrespect to the flag.

But do we really want to begin forcing people to show respect for a piece of cloth? Because that’s all it is in the physical — world just colorful fibers woven together.

We’re upset by the intellectual disrespect, because we have developed an emotional bond with our flag. It is a symbol of all that is great about this nation, an emblem of the sacrifices made on our behalf.

The flag is shorthand for freedom.

The indignant spasms in Congress and on the part of flag amendment proponents were spurred by Supreme Court decisions in 1989 and 1990 that declared unconstitutional state and local laws prohibiting flag burning. The court ruled that flag desecration was protected under the First Amendment right to free speech.

We think people should respect the flag. We should teach people to care for the flag, and to honor it.

But we should not make the flag into something it is not. No amount of flag burning tarnishes the ideals it represents; that someone can abuse a flag is a testament to this nation’s power and the freedoms we enjoy.

This country ought to be about more than what we can put our fingers on. America is about ideas of equality and freedom. The flag amendment is well-intentioned, but it would serve only to undermine the liberties it’s meant to represent.

We hope the Senate doesn’t buckle under election-year pressure.

Daily Press
Newport News, Va.
May 23, 1999

If you love your country, burn this flag

Burn this flag, not because you hate it, but because you love it.

Burn this flag, not because you want to destroy it, but because you know that the republic for which it stands is beyond the reach of any mere flame.

Burn this flag, not because you scorn it, but because it represents a freedom that must be respected more than the symbol of that freedom.

That freedom is, of course, the freedom to dissent. The freedom to stand up to the political establishment and say, “You’re wrong.”

The freedom to suggest change. To work for change. To effect change. To make this a stronger society.

From time to time well-meaning people push for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to make it illegal to burn or otherwise desecrate the flag. They make the suggestion out of love and respect for something they hold dear.

This is one of those times. The Congress can begin the process, which then requires concurrence by three-fourths of the states. But that would be a political expediency for Congress, and it would send the wrong message.

Bills to add a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution are pending in Congress. The Senate is scheduled to vote by Thursday, when the Memorial Day recess begins, but delays on other issues may push the vote into June.

Virginia’s senators take opposing views. Democrat Charles Robb opposes the amendment; Republican John Warner favors it. The House bill will be considered by the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, a member of the committee, opposes the amendment.

People burn the flag because they know it will get attention. It makes other people take notice of their cause in a way that no other action can.

We can protect the flag — make it a museum piece and protect it under shatter-proof glass, if that’s what would make us feel good — but we would be doing it for ourselves, not because the flag needs that kind of protection.

In the history of man, it remains miraculous that a society can exist with so much freedom that it can tolerate the kind of dissent that includes burning the very symbol of the nation, a symbol every American holds dear. Each time it happens, we come out a stronger people, a stronger nation. We have never been endangered or weakened by demonstrations of dissent.

A constitutional amendment will make martyrs of those who dare to disobey, but it won’t make the flag safer or stronger. In fact, it would do just the opposite. A constitutional amendment says our flag is a symbol of something so weak that it must hide behind the law. It says our freedom to express an objectionable opinion stops at the point where it offends the wrong people.

We’re not really suggesting that you burn this flag. We introduce the notion simply to emphasize the point that this is a free country. American citizens who cherish their own liberties should hold this extreme exercise of free expression so dear that they’d be willing to commit an act they find deeply offensive just to show that freedom lives.

If you do choose to set fire to this little patch of paper that bears the Stars & Stripes, you’re fanning the flames of freedom.

Like a sour lump of indigestion that just won't go away, a proposed constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag is working its way toward a vote in the U.S. Senate .

Should this well-intentioned but misguided excercise in misplaced patriotism succeed, it would mark the first adulteration of the Bill of Rights in the nation's history. The First Amendment protection of free political expression, which has been an enduring bulwark of personal liberty and national resilience, would face an unprecedented limitation.

Without question, the flag is a cherished symbol of those principles and values that define what America stands for. No one should take lightly any desecration of the flag , but neither should the symbol be confused with the ideals symbolized. Freedom of political dissent - and flag -burning has been upheld by the Supreme Court as an expression of political dissent - begins to lose its meaning if certain attitudes, ideas or even antipathies are disallowed by the government.

One of the enduring strengths of the United States has been its ability to accommodate intense differences among contending viewpoints. Despite even hateful expressions, including the rare instance of a flag burned in protest, this country has proved time and again its confidence in allowing freedom to flourish.

Sadly, some people in the land appear to be losing confidence in the promise of the Bill of Rights. They seem willing to break faith with that legacy by pandering to momentary political passions. They seem, ironically, willing to impose upon the Constitution a test of political correctness.

We appeal to a more conservative instinct: the preservation of the spirit of liberty as articulated by the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who said that "freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have or the views they express or the words they speak or write."

That's the way it should stay, for ourselves and our posterity.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle, Wash.
May 6, 1998

We should amend the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution only when we have an urgent or momentous reason that will serve generations of Americans.

But there is a move afoot - again - to tinker with the most important document spelling out the rights of Americans, and the cause just does not rise to the criteria for a constitutional amendment.

Senate Joint Resolution 40 would have the Bill of Rights outlaw the desecration of the American flag. (One previous time we saw this idea, the U.S. Supreme Court was declaring that Texas could not fine a protester for setting fire to the flag in Dallas during the 1984 Republican National Convention. No matter how repulsive it is to burn an American flag, the court said that as a protest, burning the flag is a form of free speech, protected by the First Amendment. Amen).

If we begin limiting the ways people can exercise free-speech rights, we pretty soon will find ourselves at the bottom of a very slippery slope. Someone of someone else's choosing will be deciding what is an acceptable method for declaring anger at the government, or anything else.

Nobody said we have to like all opinions protected by the First Amendment, and nobody said especially that burning Old Glory was not about as offensive as any speech can get. But the Bill of Rights says free speech applies to all of us, and tolerates all of our opinions.

Even if it didn't infringe on free-speech rights and even if flag-burning were a common occurrence, it seems unlikely that a statute would dissuade someone from trashing the flag.

Actually, the need for this argument escapes us. And the notion of going to the trouble to amend the Bill of Rights makes it even more surprising. When Senate Joint Resolution 40 gets to the Senate floor - likely before Flag Day on June 14 - we hope that this unnecessary pursuit will come to an end.

The Seattle Times
Seattle, Wash.
Sept. 11, 1998

With so much important business consuming the Capitol these days, the Senate GOP leadership is once again fanning the flames of a futile effort to ban flag burning.

Citing new poll numbers, a group of 61 Republican senators pushed a flag -protection amendment this week that would empower Congress to outlaw flag burning and other acts of desecration . The stubborn anti-free speech coalition, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, needs a half-dozen more votes to ensure passage.

Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., blustered: "The flag of the United States is more than a piece of cloth. It is a unique symbol of what it means to be an American. ... The issue here is simple. Flag burning is intolerable."

Only a simpleton would disagree with Thurmond's pledge of allegiance to the flag. Of course it's more than a cloth. It's a symbol of freedom around the world, especially in those countries where one of our most precious civil liberties — freedom of expression — is denied to citizens.

It took nearly two centuries to secure sound constitutional protections against the government's power to gag "subversive" and "seditious" speech. By empowering Congress to pick and choose which speech is lawful, based on political content, the Senate GOP flag-wavers' measure would turn back the clock and abandon an inalienable right of free expression to arbitrary political winds.

The red-white-and-blue rhetoric of amendment supporters hides a most un-American agenda: stifling political speech in the name of patriotism. It's a movement that should be extinguished in the halls of Congress once and for all.

The News-Tribune
Tacoma, Wash.
April 20, 1998

There are many tough issues Congress could be addressing: Social Securit y and Medicare reform are two that readily come to mind. But once again Congress is debating a subject that does not require any action: flag desecration. In any given year, the number of Americans who burn a flag in protest ca n be counted on one hand. Flag-desecration legislation is a solution in search of a problem.

When the rare protester chooses to burn Old Glory, local authorities are usually creative enough to come up with something to charge him with: destruction of property, violating air-pollution regulations or failing to obtain the required permits for a public event, for instance. But destroying a flag, in and of itself, is protected as a form of free speech under the First Amendment. So ruled the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990.

The only way to allow prosecution for destroying a flag would be to amend the U.S. Constitution. That has been attempted twice in this decade — in 1990 and 1995 — and twice good sense prevailed as Congress narrowly failed to approve a constitutional amendment that would have to be ratified by 38 states.

Now the issue is back - just in time for the election season. In fact, that's what the push to "protect" the flag is really all about: politicians (mostly Republican) trying to position themselves as defenders of the flag at the expense of their opponents, who are characterized as less than patriotic for their unwillingness to make flag-burning a crime.

It is a courageous official indeed who puts the U.S. Constitution above political expediency and defends an unpopular form of protest. In Washington state's delegation, all the Republicans except Rep. Rick White voted for the flag amendment ; all the Democrats except Rep. Adam Smith opposed it. Now the Senate will take up the issue; in 1995, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray opposed the amendment while Republican Slade Gorton supported it.

If a flag-desecration amendment is approved, it would be the first time in American history that the Constitution had been modified to restrict a freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Not only would this be a bad precedent, it is simply unnecessary. Those who cherish the freedoms symbolized by the flag should defend the right of those few who would destroy it. "Protecting" the flag from an action the majority abhors would diminish the very freedom it so powerfully symbolizes.

The Columbian
Vancouver, Wash.

Nothing less than the First Amendment guarantee of free speech will be in jeopardy if the U.S. Senate follows the unimaginably bad example of the House and passes a Constitutional amendment that would give Congress power to punish people who burn the American flag in protest.

The House passed it 310 to 114 in June. The Senate may vote on this foolish amendment late this summer. Majority Leader Trent Lott's office says it may come to a vote in September. It has to get a two-thirds vote of the Senate and then must be ratified by 38 states. This process may seem long and tortuous, but over the years it has protected the Constitution from boneheaded amendments like this one.

It's hard to find Americans who relish the idea of burning the American flag , even as an exercise in free speech. The flag is precious and represents ideals for which people have given their lives. But flags have no rights. People have rights, and one of our most precious rights is free speech, protected (so far) by the First Amendment .

The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 and again in 1990 that flag burning is free speech and, thus, constitutionally protected. The protections offered by the First Amendment should not be eroded just to buffer our sensibilities from extremely rare acts of protest.

There have been enough previous efforts to ban flag burning (all failed) to make it appear as if this is a widespread problem that needs an immediate solution. On a list of the top 1,000 national problems, flag burning would rank about 2,500th. To chisel apart the hallowed words of the First Amendment for such a puny reason defies logic.

The Senate often shows better sense than the House. It's time for it to do so again by sending this ridiculous amendment down in flames.

Yakima Herald-Republic
Yakima, Wash.
March 28, 1999

Protection for the Flag Unnecessary, Bad Idea

It is rapidly becoming an annual feel-good exercise. Congress has begun debate again on a constitutional amendment prohibiting the physical desecration of the American flag. In the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed similar legislation last year, a hearing on a proposed amendment was held last week by the Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution.

In the Senate, where the matter did not come to a vote last year, similar legislation has been introduced and has attracted 56 co-sponsors. Hearings are planned this week.

So here we go again.

Yet the arguments against the amendment are just as valid today as they were during numerous other attempts over the years to get congressional approval.

The proposed amendment would permit Congress and the states to enact laws to prohibit flag desecration. It is a reaction to U.S. Supreme Court rulings that threw out such laws as a violation of the First Amendment protections of free speech.

The flag is the symbol of all the freedoms that so many have sacrificed to protect during the course of this nation's history. And the one freedom that is so important that the Founding Fathers made it the first amendment to the Constitution protects the right to denigrate that symbol.

Therein is the irony of this perennial proposal. It seeks to change the Constitution to negate a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Too often that gets lost in the emotional debate that surrounds this issue. The Constitution doesn't say you have to like the kind of free speech or expression that it allows. It does guarantee that you can't infringe on someone else's rights simply because you disagree with that person.

The U.S. Constitution has been changed only 27 times in the course of our history, and 10 of those changes were enacted as the Bill of Rights shortly after its ratification. There should be a compelling reason to amend this bedrock of our form of government, and the flag-burning amendment does not meet that test. We survived the vitriolic Vietnam-era protests in which flag-burning was in vogue, and we have moved on as a nation.

Certainly we would join those who would condemn desecration of the flag. But such desecration is rare these days, and resurrecting a constitutional amendment to deal with it is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem.

The Register-Herald
Beckley, W.Va.

By R. Shawn Lewis

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment is under fire from lawmakers who want to make it illegal to burn Old Glory. For the first time in history, a basic American freedom -- speech -- could be shackled and the consequences are fatal.

Don't get us wrong. The sight of Old Glory furling in the wind sends a special chill down our backs and puts a warm feeling in our guts. And we certainly are incensed when protesters choose to ignite Old Glory.

Politicians have been down this path before. Earlier attempts to ban flag-burning were rightfully overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the destruction of the flag in political protest constitutes protected and lawful speech.

This time they're trying to amend the Constitution and, in the process, cripple the First Amendment. We cannot stand for this.
To allow even the smallest measure of censorship would send America spiraling toward destruction.

America was built on free speech. The Boston Tea Party, one of the defining moments in this country's infancy, was all about free speech and the right to protest government policies.

What if a few conservative patriots convinced the masses not to dump Ol' King George's tea in the Boston Harbor because, back then, tea was revered as a sacred, precious commodity the way Old Glory is considered today?

How prevalent is flag-burning in the United States? Since 1990, when the court ruled it was protected speech, about five flag-burnings a year have been recorded.

Do these rare, isolated incidents merit the destruction of the First Amendment, which has stood for more than 200 years?

The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which was crucial to the passage of the Constitution. In fact, the 13 states would not ratify the Constitution until the first 10 amendments were included.

Old Glory is a symbol of freedom. Her red bars are tributes to the blood shed by the colonists who revolted against tyrannical oppression, including censorship and the inability to protest government policies.

The proposed amendment, which carries the support of both West Virginia senators, slaps the faces of those marvelous patriots and decries the very freedoms for which the flag flies.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a staunch defender of the Constitution, is the last person we'd expect see standing in support of this amendment. Frankly, we'd expect Byrd to be leading the charge against it.

We must suppress our emotions on this issue. Old Glory in flames is a sickening vision, but the Constitution in shambles is an apocalyptic vision.

It foretells the end of America as we know it today; an America based on the freedoms of speech, religion and press for which our forefathers fought and died.

Don't let their patriotic actions be obscured by politicians fanning the flames of this ill-advised flag-burning amendment.

We would be remiss if we let Independence Day pass without reminding Americans that their freedom is in danger.

No, the country is not under attack by outside forces. But its flag is under siege, and the threat is coming from within the halls of government.

Some time this week, the U.S. Senate will likely vote on a historic, albeit flaw