-Caveat Lector-
Flag Desecration Amendment Returns
Once again, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give Congress the
power to prohibit the physical desecration of the U.S. flag has been
introduced in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
In an effort to thwart two Supreme Court rulings that flag burning is
symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment, Representatives Randy
"Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) and John Murtha (D-PA) have introduced HJ Res. 33 in
the House. Senator Hatch (R-UT) has introduced a similar measure, SJ Res. 14,
in the Senate. The House passed a similar flag amendment during the 105th
Congress (H.J. Res 54), but supporters of the bill could not muster enough
support to even bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. If the
amendment had passed the Senate and been ratified by at least 38 states, it
would have become the first amendment to limit Americans freedom of
expression.
Although we've been able to defeat similar proposals in the past, our margins
are becoming increasingly thinner. In 1995, for example, a flag desecration
amendment passed in the House and failed by only three votes in the Senate.
Speak Out Against This Issue!
The proposed constitutional amendment would do irreparable violence to our
right to free speech and undermine the very principles for which the American
flag stands.
Those who favor the proposed amendment say they do so in honor of the flag.
But in proposing to unravel the First Amendment, they desecrate what the flag
represents, and what millions of Americans have died to defend.
Unlike many other issues that bedevil our community, flag burning or
desecration is an extremely rare occurrence.
A constitutional amendment would, therefore, be the very definition of a
solution in search of a problem.
Unlike what some would have us believe, opposition to a flag desecration
amendment is neither Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative.
Both in the Supreme Court and in Congress, officials opposing measures to
"protect the flag" have fallen across the ideological spectrum. Justice
Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative members, has
consistently opposed similar measures while conservative Senators Robert
Bennett of Utah and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joined Edward Kennedy and
Paul Wellstone in voting against a flag amendment in 1995.
TAKE ACTION!
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