An Odd Era

[struggle4progress]

New York Sun Editorial
June 24, 2005

With all the great problems facing the Republic - rapacious tort lawyers, a Social Security system hurtling toward fiscal shortfalls, escalating medical costs - it's no small thing that the House of Representatives felt it had to take the time this week to start the ball rolling toward a Constitutional amendment in respect of flag-burning. The House, by a vote of 286 to 130, approved wording that would say, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

It's hard to say whether this idea will prosper in the Senate, but the Congress has been festering on this issue since 1989, when the Supreme Court, in Texas v. Johnson, found that a Texas law banning flag burning infringed on the First Amendment free speech rights of the burner. It was a 5-to-4 split. Justice Stevens, usually a liberal, sided with Texas, as did Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor, who both still sit on the high court. Justices Scalia and Marshall joined the majority opinion by Justice Brennan, which said, "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

http://www.nysun.com/article/16036