Posted on 06/13/2006 11:44:31 AM PDT by pissant
WASHINGTON -- Sometime between now and the Fourth of July, the Senate plans to revisit what over the course of 17 years has become a seasonal rite of patriotism on Capitol Hill: a vote on whether to amend the Constitution to ban protesters from burning the American flag.
Each time, the arguments on both sides are passionate. Each time, the support needed to move ahead with an amendment falls short.
But this year could be different, as two important trends cross paths.
For one, proponents of the amendment appear to have more support than ever in the Senate. They say they are within one vote of the two-thirds majority they need. The House already has backed the amendment. A majority of Americans say they support a flag amendment, and over time all 50 states have passed some form of resolution urging Congress to act. "We believe once the amendment moves off of Capitol Hill it will be the swiftest-ratified amendment in the history of the nation," said Marty Justis of Indianapolis, a Navy veteran and executive director of the Citizens' Flag Alliance, which for years has led the campaign. He and other supporters will be back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday -- Flag Day -- trying to round up and lock in support.
At the same time, some polling indicates Americans' once-robust support for a flag amendment is waning and could be tough to recapture for many years if it slips below 50 percent. That has amendment opponents -- a mix of liberals, free-speech activists and conservatives who believe the Constitution should never or almost never be amended -- determined to stave off Senate passage.
"This is very generational -- basically, if this doesn't pass the next Congress or two, it's a dying issue," said Terri Ann Schroeder, a senior lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the amendment as an infringement on free speech.
The dynamics of what's going on in the Senate this year may have as much to do with the histories of the individual lawmakers as with the pressure to be patriotic on Capitol Hill post-9/11 and in the midst of the Iraq war.
Some longtime opponents of the amendment retired in recent years, replaced by newcomers whose campaign platforms included support of a flag amendment, or by former House members who supported the amendment there.
The lower chamber has voted on the amendment more frequently than the Senate, and with less consequence; its fate always has been up to the Senate. The vote Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee has promised this year would be the Senate's first vote on the proposed amendment since 2000, when it fell four votes shy.
If senators' past votes and public statements are a fair indicator, there are now 66 proponents. With all 100 members present, that would leave them one vote shy of the 67 votes needed to move ahead. But if one or two opponents are out at any given time, reducing the two-thirds threshold to 66 votes or fewer, backers of the amendment could make a go at it.
The divisions on the issue are not entirely partisan. Activists count 14 Democrats among the 66 proponents. Of 34 senators believed to oppose the amendment, three are Republicans, including GOP Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Meanwhile, the Gallup organization pegged national support for a flag amendment at 71 percent in 1989, but found support had slipped to 63 percent by 1999, and to 55 percent by last summer.
Gallup's numbers are not uniformly accepted. The First Amendment Center, a free-speech advocacy organization, pegs support at below 50 percent. The Citizens' Flag Alliance has just conducted its own polling in 10 states, meanwhile, and claims Gallup's and the First Amendment Center's polls both are wrong and that support for protecting the flag is really as strong as it's ever been.
In the 1960s and '70s, opposition to the Vietnam War triggered its share of flag burnings back home.
But the push for an amendment that gives Congress the express power to pass laws banning flag desecration began far later, in 1989, as the Cold War was coming to an end. The trigger was a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court invalidating a Texas law used to convict a man who in 1984 burned a flag in protest of Republican policies.
The high court said flag burning is protected as an expression of free speech. Congress responded with the Flag Protection Act, a federal law banning flag burning. In 1990, the Supreme Court overturned that law as well.
Preventing anti-American protesters from expressing themselves in such a clear and invocative manner makes it harder to tell whom to shoot.
A background story for you Senate watchers.
You can tell by the smell.
Greece has a stiff penalty for messing with their flag.
You mean GWB's "grecian" friends already ahve protections?
I voted against flag burning before I voted for it.
/Sarcasm off
Thanks
Every feminist should be burning the flag right now!
/Sarcasm Off
Shut up, you two, it's almost July 4th!
/Sarcasm OFF
"I voted against flag burning before I voted for it. "
He also claimed to burn his own flag only to later admit it was his neighbors flag.
Nobody shuts me up while I'm condemning our troops!
/Sarcasm OFF
Be quiet you old fart, we were talking about democrats burning the flag, not you burning the troopers!
/Sarcasm OFF
Why don't they just make it out of fireproof material? Neh that would be too easy.
Talk about burning, we should all worry about my inconvienient truth. I'm Mr. Global-Warmed-Over and how dare you steal my hot air!
/sarcasm off
Great posts!!
Cool off Al. You should take a dip in it, Mr. Imputus-for-the-Love Canal. I've got a health care plan that will heal every flag burner. So there!
/Sarcasm OFF
I think the flag burning amendement is being pushed by those who think symbolism over substance.
They are trying to obscure the Federal Marriage Amendment with something that is obviously a pander.
Let me guess, McCain supports this limit on the first amendment but opposes the protection of marriage.
The Constitution should not be further amended.
The tide may be turning. The dems can't afford to be seen as the real quislings that they are.
Maybe. But it is overdue and so is the FMA.
I thought we democrats were talking about burning the constitution, not amending it.
/Sarcasm OFF
Nonsense. They put a device for amending it in for a reason. To allow changes. It is the ONLY way it should be changed, not through the courts or through crappy laws that infringe on it.
This should have been done many years ago. The sooner this bill is passed and signed the better. That, and the amendment making traditional marriage an amendment, and a return to prayer to school for those who want to would be nice too.
Shut up Dingy, we were talking about democrats burning the flag not the U.S. Consitution!
/Sarcasm OFF
A solution looking for a problem.
There have been several amendments over the years, and there are some big problems as a result. FreeRepublic itself was formed partly to see about fixing some of these ill-advised amendments, and it might be well to make those fixes before creating some new screw-ups.
Teddy, I voted for the Marraige amendment before I voted against Holy Marraige. Don't I get to be President now?
/Sarcasm off
John, were talking about democrats burning the flag not about your marraige.
/Sarcasm OFF
Perfect. Roll them all into one amendment.
Below is Article 14 of the Greek Constitution:
http://www.hri.org/docs/syntagma/
Do you have a cite for the specific law?
(ps: just for fun, article three would emotionally kill the ACLU)
Article 14
1. Every person may express and propagate his thoughts orally, in writing and through the press in compliance with the laws of the State.
2. The press is free. Censorship and all other preventive measures are prohibited.
3. The seizure of newspapers and other publications before or after circulation is prohibited.
Seizure by order of the public prosecutor shall be allowed exceptionally after circulation and in case of:
a) an offence against the Christian or any other known religion.
b) an insult against the person of the President of the Republic.
c) a publication which discloses information on the composition, equipment and set-up of the armed forces or the fortifica-tions of the country, or which aims at the violent overthrow of the regime or is directed against the territorial integrity of the State.
d) an obscene publication which is obviously offensive to public decency, in the cases stipulated by law.
4. In all the cases specified under the preceding paragraph, the public prosecutor must, within twenty-four hours from the seizure, submit the case to the judicial council which, within the next twenty-four hours, must rule whether the seizure is to be maintained or lifted; otherwise it shall be lifted ipso jure. An appeal may be lodged with the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court by the publisher of the newspaper or other printed matter seized and by the public prosecutor.
5. The manner in which full retraction shall be made in cases of inaccurate publications shall be determined by law.
6. After at least three convictions within five years for the criminal acts defined under paragraph 3, the court shall order the definitive ban or the temporary suspension of the publication of the paper and, in severe cases, shall prohibit the convicted person from practising the profession of journalist as specified by law. The ban or suspension of publication shall be effective as of the date the court order becomes irrevocable.
7. Press offences shall be subject to immediate court hearing and shall be tried as provided by law.
8. The conditions and qualifications requisite for the practice of the profession of journalist shall be specified by law.
9. The law may specify that the means of financing newspapers and periodicals should be disclosed.
The problem was the Supreme court ruling it was "constitutional". It's America's way of telling the courts to shove it up their ass.
Really, I don't think the founders would have thought of flag burning as "speech" any more than they would have thought that Barney Frank sodomizing his boyfriend was constitutionally protected "privacy".
Democrats: "there's a constitution? when did the UN give us that? is there a translation into english?"
There have been ill advised amendments and there have been others that have been right on the money.
Will they specify how to dispose of an old, worn out flag? The flag code says it should be burned.
McCain supports it for now; if it looks like there will be 67 one of the "supporters" will change their minds rather than moving the issue to the states. Incidently, I asked my very liberal state rep what he thought would happen if the bill were taken up by the Massachusetts State House and he said he'd vote against it but that he was certain Massachusetts would vote "aye".
Burning for disposal will be allowed, of course.
I'm not sure there's any "of course" about it.
It was part of previous amendment attempts.
We are not as smart as the Founding Fathers, nor do we have a clue what they did. Any change we make ends up being used for something else, and anything mentioned in the Constitution or an Amendment becomes automatically a Federal matter and subject to Federal jurisdiction, and that includes things only implied such as the modern American corporation. Which Amendment created the modern American corporation and the necessity of GATT and NAFTA? The only amendments that make sense are those that provide suffrage for citizens.
The first 10 were pretty good, dont you think?
How about 13 and 22 and 15 and 25 and especially 21.
Have fun. You'll be rich.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Seriously, although I love Old Glory, and am maddened when I see anyone mistreat this symbol of our nation (even through ignorance or stupidity) I am always wary of this amendment when it perennially comes up for a vote. My objections revolve around two main ideas:
1. For those who love our land and our flag, this is an offense that will make anyone who does it anathema to us, and that is a vast majority of Americans. It is analogous to spitting on the sidewalk. It is inappropriate and crude, but shouldn't be illegal (especially at the level of amending our founding document).
2. With vastness of the Federal Code and laws that regulate our lives in every conceivable way, more laws are not what we need. What we need is a return to the will to national greatness (and our recognition thereof) that will make anyone who tramples on our national symbols the outcast that they deserve to be.
The Second is the one that counted and that secured approval for the new Federal Constitution. The rest is window dressing, excepting those that grant full citizenship to citizens, such as the much abused Fourteenth.
It is analogous to crapping on a soldiers grave or protesting their funerals, not spitting onthe sidewalk.
I'm all for repealing 80% of the stinking laws on the federal docket as well as the states. But the way to overturn a ridiculous court decision, REQUIRING that states in this republic allow flag burning is through an amendment. It is the SCOTUS that lead us to this point. Free speech my arse. If you had done so in early America, you would have been tarred and feathered.
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