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| Vote on flag desecration may be 'cliffhanger' |
| 2005-06-15 |
| The Senate may be within one or two votes of passing a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag, clearing the way for ratification by the states, a key opponent of the measure said Tuesday. "It's scary close," said Terri Schroeder of the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the amendment. "People think it's something that's never going to happen. ... The reality is we're very close to losing this battle." and after that they may even go after our Sacred Giant Puppets! Congress regularly has debated the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas flag desecration law in 1989 and its own Flag Protection Act the next year. But until now, it has failed to muster the two-thirds vote needed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate before states try to ratify the measure. Next week, the House will vote on the amendment for a seventh time. If history is a guide, it will pass for a seventh time. That's when the spotlight switches to the Senate, where the amendment has always died. But this time may be different. Amendment supporters say last year's election expanding the Senate Republican majority to 55 has buoyed their hopes for passage. Five freshmen senators - Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota and David Vitter of Louisiana - voted for the amendment as House members and plan to do so again. They will be joined by at least five Democrats who have co-sponsored the resolution, including Dianne Feinstein of California and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Both are up for re-election next year. Not all senators have publicly declared their support or opposition. In 2000, when the Senate last took up the matter, 63 voted for the amendment, four short of a two-thirds majority. "We're going to have deeper support for this, and the intensity is growing," Thune said Tuesday, which was Flag Day. "There's momentum." Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says he expects "a cliffhanger." He says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is eager to bring up the issue, and some Democrats may be too nervous to oppose it. Scenes of foreigners burning American flags may be common on TV, but such desecration is rare in this country. The Citizens Flag Alliance, an advocacy group that supports a constitutional amendment, reports a decline in flag desecration incidents, with only one this year. Still, "it's important that we venerate the national symbol of our country," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, the amendment's chief sponsor. "Burning, urinating, defecating on the flag - this is not speech. This is offensive conduct." The Senate Judiciary Committee may not hold a hearing until around the July Fourth holiday, and a floor vote hasn't been scheduled. University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato is skeptical about the amendment's prospects. "They may come close," he says, "but I would put good money on the likelihood that, once again, it won't be sent to the states." If it is, though, "it is almost a foregone conclusion that the states would ratify" the amendment, says John Vile, a constitutional law expert at Middle Tennessee State University and editor of Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America. Every state legislature has passed resolutions urging Congress to send them a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. Still, such resolutions aren't binding, and "that doesn't necessarily mean it would pass in the states," says Heather Morton, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. A poll released last week by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center in Nashville found 63% oppose a flag amendment, up from 53% last year. "Clearly, more Americans are having second thoughts about using a constitutional amendment to" instill respect for the flag, said Gene Policinski, the center's executive director. "Many Americans consider it the ultimate test of a free society to permit the insult or even desecration of one of the great symbols of the nation." sure it is. right after protecting the giant puppets. |
| Posted by:too true |
| #18 I don't know about that, DJ66. The USSC has ignored darned nearevery amendment. 1. Campaign Finance "reform" 2. Too many to list 3. Never challenged. 4. No-knock drug raids, the IRS, checkpoints... 5. Taking-through-regulation, the LAPD cops tried twice for Rodney King. 6. Sexual harassment and certain other crimes you can be convicted by "witness" you may not see or cross-examine. 7. Can you get a jury trial from the IRS when the amount is over $20? Heck, Parking Tickets are over $20. Can you get a jury for them? Or a minor (not DUI) traffic ticket? 8. Um, well, OK, I don't think this one has been grossly violated. In fact, probably they read too much into it. 9. Who knows? 10. Long gone. Growing your own wheat or pot is Interstate Commerce. 11. I don't know. I wouldn't doubt it. 12. OK. This one still stands. 13. A lot of people will disagree with Me here, but I think the Draft qualifies. 14. Section 2 was a dead letter. Congress had to pass the Voting Rights act because the courts ignored this. I'd like to see Section 3 apply to J. Forbes Kerry and a few others. 15. My copy doesn't say "Unless they're white males, of course," but the Court's does. 16. [sigh] If you could pick one amendment the Court should ignore... 17. Hmm. OK, I think. 18. Moot. 19. I don't think it's ever been challenged. I suspect the sex being abridged might make a difference should a case come up. 20. Never challenged. 21. I have to admit they've done OK on this one. 22. Never challenged. 23. I wish they would violate this one. 24. OK. 25. Never challenged. 26. Never challenged. 27. Hasn't been around long enough to violate. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-06-15 22:53 |
| #17 SC can not stop it if it becomes an admendment to the Constitution. Getting 2/3 of the states to ratify it will be hard.This is a bad law we can put are energy into to someelse like executing gitmo prisoners :) |
| Posted by: djohn66 2005-06-15 21:35 |
| #16 Sea, don't worry. The Supreme Court is in business to work out exactly this kind of conflict in the constitution. The SC will also have no problem nullifying it as the California SC does each Amendment or referendum it doesn't like. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-06-15 20:41 |
| #15 Jackal's on a tear. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-06-15 19:42 |
| #14 Lol. Bait. *wiggle* *wiggle* ;-) |
| Posted by: .com 2005-06-15 19:30 |
| #13 If I raked the leaves in the yard into the shape of a flag, would it be OK to burn them then? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-06-15 19:28 |
| #12 If it is passed and ratified as an Amendment to the Constitution, it is *not* unConstitutional. The folks flogging this bill *know* that the only way for it to become law is as an Amendment. And I still don't like it. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-06-15 18:00 |
| #11 Yep, Mojo gotter it. I'll piss on the flag if my bladder is full. It's cloth. I'll light my bong with bible leaves, it's a book. Get a grip folks. To damn much stylin and symolizin and not enough hard core believe. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-15 17:56 |
| #10 Unconstitutional, on it's face. Even congresscritters ought to have more sense. |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-06-15 16:58 |
| #9 It's already illegal to burn a dollar bill. No one seems to have any trouble with that. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2005-06-15 16:05 |
| #8 Let me get this straight, we're already handing out punishments in various forms for 'hate' speech, but we're getting our nits in a bind over the actual process of the 'will of the people' to make flag burning a criminal offense. The ACLU "It's scary close," doesn't ask the fundamental question why it is so close? You push the edge of the envelope too many times, you're going to pop it. And they - the ACLU - doesn't grasp that because they believe that the people should be ruled through an independent branch of government that is not accountable to the people. Rule through litigation, not consent. Good, Bad, or Indifferent. If the people want it, the people get it. And the process is so involved and requires so much more than simple majorities, that you might as well throw any justification to rationalize true demoncratic self rule if you can not recognize it in action. My two cents, it just a manifestation of our way to the American Civil War Part II. Lines are being drawn. People have stop talking to each other and are talking past each other. One side a long time ago decided not to compromise. The otherside is now taking the same posture, recognizing that further gesture of rational discourse are fruitless. |
| Posted by: Craigum Thineter6031 2005-06-15 15:46 |
| #7 I see room for compromise here. Allow them to burn the flag but decriminalize the offense of beating the shit out of the flag burners. Also should one light him or herself up while burning the flag like our famous Pakistani friend, make it illegal to put him out. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-06-15 15:22 |
| #6 Even if this does pass(which I hope it doesn't), it's not the end of the world. Prosecuters aren't going to send people to jail over "cloth", maybe a fine at the very worst. My guess is that most of the times this is reported to police nothing will be done. There are FAR more important matters than arresting a flag-burner. |
| Posted by: Charles 2005-06-15 14:58 |
| #5 I disagree with the idea of criminalizing flag burning, period. It puts the flag -- a symbol -- into the same category as a Koran -- a magic talisman, maybe an idol, certainly a symbol of superstitious belief. On the other hand, we Americans do love our flag because it's the symbol of all that's great and good about our country, along with Mom and Apple Pie and Baseball. Its desecration should certainly provide mitigating circumstances to anyone who happened to thump knobs on the head of its desecrators. I can live with "desecrate the flag at your own risk" a lot better than I can live with "treat the flag like Mooselimbs treat the Koran." |
| Posted by: Fred 2005-06-15 14:46 |
| #4 Nope. I don't care for this law, and certainly not as a Constitutional amendment. In my view of the Constitution, the amendments are to clarify what the Government may or may not do ("Congress shall make no law..."), and details about how it is to operate (voting age, income tax, presidential succession). IIRC, the sole Amendment that attempted to regulate what the People may or may not do was #18, Prohibition. That was a dismal failure and had to be repealed. A friend of mine says that if the amendment banning the burning of the US flag (red/white/blue, 50 stars, 13 stripes) goes into effect, we will be able to read by the light of the burning 49-star, 17 stripe, pink/green/yellow flags. I tend to agree. I also note that in the Yahoo news version of the story, they show a burka clad woman in Sadr City holding a burning flag. (It's the year anniversary of Tater and the Tots laying down arms, heh.) How is that supposed to be 'cured' by this stupid amendment? |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-06-15 14:44 |
| #3 It's a matter of balance Anon, We have to sit here in the states and listen to a bunch of liberal sissy-boys cry about koran abuse when we are in a fight for our lives. Yet, we also have to watch news clip on the communist news network (CNN) of arab assholes ripping up a flag in the middle of N.Y. city. Something is askew here, do you really feel at a disadvantage in Australia because you cannot publically blaspheme a religion? I think we need to be a little more like Australia, I think having a little bit more orderly of a society wouldn't hurt us a bit. I'm just one guy talking here, but not being able to commit wildly outrageous acts in public wouldn't make me feel like I was living in communist china. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-06-15 14:23 |
| #2 I'd just as soon not see this pass. Instead, allow severe beatings without criminal repercussions for the burners. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-06-15 13:59 |
| #1 In Australia it is illegal to 'blaspheme' or to insult a religion. It is illegal for me to rip up a koran and crap on it in public. Gotta do it in private. Yet the flag is not protected.... If you pass this law, it may open the door to other legislation that you will not like. You will fill prisons with people who desecrated a piece of cloth. As much as I love America and loathe those who desecrate the flag, I hate Australian laws that deny me freedom of speech and expression. DOn't become more like us!!! No, it should be legal to burn the US flag, but also to burn a Koran. Thus you can have your right of reply! After all they are both just symbols. |
| Posted by: anon1 2005-06-15 13:07 |