The visible symbol embodying our Nation

Shoot if you must, this old grey head, but spare your country's flag

On April 14th 2005 Senator Orin Hatch proposed an amendment to the Constitution. Previously, (last Sunday) I predicted that this amendment 'will pass'. It is possible that we will see this come to pass any day now. I pray I am correct.

The 28th Amendment to the US Constitution will read concisely, " The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. "

Currently we have 65 votes in favor of the proposal to amend the Constitution banning the desecration of the American flag. We need only two of the remaining three Senators to vote in the affirmative. The other requirements have been met, the House passed it in June 2005 and since then 'ALL' fifty States adopted a similar resolution protecting the flag.




The ACLU and many on the far Left are crying foul and claiming such an amendment is censorship. This amendment is NOT in anyway censorship. Yet the ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson said, " The right to voice a dissenting view point no matter how unpopular is a bedrock principal of America". That is true, but absolutely nothing about this proposal that will censor speech. It would simply regulate the way the view point is expressed. Congress has regulated the way free speech is expressed in many instances, and retains the right to regulate the way the flag is treated, displayed etc. If you hate America and all it stands for you can run down the street screaming 'I hate America' and 'Capitalist pig die" just as long as you don't desecrate our flag, or any of our national monuments in the process.
In his dissenting opinion in Texas vs. Johnson (opinion text), Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote,
"The American flag, then, throughout more than 200 years of our history, has come to be the visible symbol embodying our Nation. It does not represent the views of any particular political party, and it does not represent any particular political philosophy. The flag is not simply another "idea" or "point of view" competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Millions and millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence regardless of what sort of social, political, or philosophical beliefs they may have. I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the Act of Congress, and the laws of 48 of the 50 States, which make criminal the public burning of the flag."
When Rehnquist went on to say that irreverent burning the flag is, "no essential part of any exposition of ideas" but rather "the equivalent of an inarticulate grunt or roar that, it seems fair to say, is most likely to be indulged in not to express any particular idea, but to antagonize others."

The late Rehnquist has said it best.