Congress Seeks To Desecrate Our Flag

Once again, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution is before Congress, which would criminalize the desecration of the national flag. By this amendment, an act of political expression by a private citizen would be specifically forbidden by our Constitution.

This amendment has, in the past, failed by a hairsbreadth, clearing the House of Representatives but just falling short in the Senate. However, additional right-wingers (who generally favor the amendment) were elected to the Senate last November, giving it a better-than-even chance to pass this time.

Some of you may be surprised to hear this, but I am a real old-fashioned lump-in-the-throat patriot. I get sentimental about the Fourth of July, the Vietnam Memorial, high-school football, I-Like-Ike buttons, a pig roast on a summer's night, cowboy music, and all the stuff Garrison Keillor talks about on Prairie Home Companion.

The United States flag stands for more than that, though. It is, without any doubt, a sacred symbol to many of us-myself included. And it is sacred because it stands for some of the noblest principles conceived by humankind-and for the realization of a few of them.

One of those principles-that free citizens have every right to express and practice their beliefs-is protected in the first amendment to our Constitution:

"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."

Without that amendment-or should that amendment be abridged as is now proposed-the rest of what our flag stands for won't much matter.

That amendment does not exist to protect expressions that we approve of. If nobody ever made an offensive gesture, spoke or wrote an offensive word, there would be no need for such an amendment. It exists, quite clearly, to protect the most vile, reprehensible expressions-such as burning the flag.

You might say, "It's just a small thing, protecting the flag; it doesn't really hamper anyone's right to free expression." No, it's a very big thing.

The emotionalistic argument I hear most often is that the flag ought to be Constitutionally protected because it stands for the millions of American boys who've died in battle over the years to protect our freedoms and ideals.

To this I reply, "Yes, among other things, that IS what it stands for. And what did those boys die for, if NOT for our right to express our political views, however obnoxiously?"

I submit that the fact that one CAN burn a flag in this country is the crowning monument to those boys' sacrifices! This proposed amendment, on the other hand, would be the crowning mockery.

I'll go farther than that. I say that members of Congress who support this amendment are, by so doing, desecrating the very flag they claim to be protecting. They might as well be lining up to take dumps on it, and using pages of the Constitution for toilet paper.

In many cases, their support of this amendment is even more villainous, in that it is not based on a sincerely held belief. As often as not, they are cravenly holding a piece of cloth more important than the principle of free expression because they're afraid that someone will accuse them of "voting against the flag."

This proposed amendment is simply un-American.

For whatever good it might do, I entreat each and every one of you to contact your Senators and Representatives, and urge them to vote against this amendment. To make it easier for you, I have composed the following poem, which you are welcome to forward to them. (Please do keep my by-line on it, though, because I am rather vain of this particular work.)

To find your Senators' and Representatives' fax numbers and e-mail addresses, go to http://thomas.loc.gov-or buy a directory to the 106th Congress at any bookstore. The snail-mail addresses are Sen. Jane Doe, U.S. Senate, Washington D.C. 20510 or Rep. Ward Heeler, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515.

(Just so's you know, the "ballade" is a very strict form that originated in France. It consists of three stanzas of eight lines each, and an "envoi" of four lines. The rhyming pattern is ABABBCBC (BCBC for the enovi). You must use the same three rhyming sounds throughout, but you may never repeat a rhyming word, except for the last line of each stanza, which is the refrain. Meter is up to the author; I've used iambic tetrameter here.):

copyright 2000 by Joseph Dobrian