This article ran in the Tallahassee Democrat on April 9, 1995. It also was printed in the Pensacola News Journal, from whose patriotic readers I received much mail telling me that I am cowardly and anti-American.

Looking like Salem judges at a witch trial, some of the most strident conservatives in Congress rallied in Washington on March 21 to support a flag-burning amendment. In a remark that is sure to shake defenders of individual rights, rights the flag represents, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah (flanked by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and other protectors of civil liberties) warned ominously that he and his posse "want to ban offensive conduct." Hmmm. Since, under this amendment, states would set the penalties, I think I'll skip South Carolina for vacation this summer.

I don't know about you, but I'm not running into flag-burnings much day-to-day. Does Congress really need to address this non-issue? It's like the legislature taking up the problem of people speeding down the freeway backward in pickup trucks: is it happening often enough to warrant enfranchising it in our county statutes, let alone in our Constitution?

So, riffling through their notes uneasily in search of a danger to identify, these Congressional constabularies settled on the idea that they were protecting soldiers who have died in defense of the flag. We should revere our fallen soldiers, but we need to remember the values for which they fought. Our brave troops died to protect the freedom represented by the American political system. American soldiers sacrificed for the liberty of individuals to do and say what they want, so long as it harms no one else. They didn't die so the government could preserve its emblem in sanctity beyond reproach, or, as Senator Hatch suggested, ban offensive conduct. Real patriots like Senator Bob Kerry of Nebraska, who won the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, understand the basis of American freedom and are condemning the flag-burning amendment.

Thomas Jefferson, who probably knew as much as Strom Thurmond about the rights represented by the flag, cautioned that not law but ideas are the proper weapons to use against error. "It is error alone which needs the support of government," Jefferson wrote. "Truth can stand by itself." The flag also is strong enough to stand without protection, and in that freedom is its glory.

It's not the great democracies of the world that have needed a symbol like the flag to rally their sentiments. A commitment to freedom is a value that a population either holds in its heart or else can't be forced on it. The democratic citizens of this nation have known perfectly well why they are committed to freedom. Only the earth's tyrannies have needed a flag to command and organize their people. I make it a habit to be suspicious of constitutional amendments that Hitler and Stalin would have endorsed for their citizens, and punishing disrespect for a symbol is a measure they would have endorsed enthusiastically.

The flag-burning amendment is un-American. If it weren't so frightening and discouraging, the logic of a flag-burning amendment would be rather ridiculous. Since the Constitution embodies the values of democracy more than the flag, we would also need to have an amendment against burning the Constitution--criminalizing those like William Lloyd Garrison, who, in opposition to slavery, burned a copy of the Constitution on Boston Common. We would also need to ban desecration of the Declaration of Independence.

Where would it stop? Perhaps, since our soldiers died for the American values of mom and apple pie, we should ban the burning of apple pie recipes? No, Senators Hatch and Thurmond, the paper and the cloth aren't important. American citizens either have freedom in their hearts or they don't. And they do.