THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409290183
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
City Council faces enough contentious issues. Why raise another - flag-burning - that's as relevant to city business as the Red Dragon Thunderzord? Because Mayor Oberndorf, who brought it up, may have anticipated a sure winner: a resolution in support of an organization promoting a constitutional amendment that would allow states to outlaw flag-burning.
The General Assembly has already approved the move. Council approved it last week, but not quickly or unanimously. And Council members who voted against it were very concerned that their opposition not be construed as unpatriotic. Why should it be? Scoundrels have burned the flag. Scoundrels have waved it.
This is a military area that has waved hundreds of thousands of its citizen-soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines/guardsmen and -women into harm's way, welcomed the return of most and mourned the flag-draped coffins of too many. It has also seen its share of flags burned in dissent and heard a rumble of discontent that the U.S. Supreme Court supports them, thereby robbing the Constitution (according to the resolution) of ``the reverence, respect and dignity befitting the banner of that most noble experiment of a nation-state.''
But patriotic folk can disagree on that, can see worse forms of protest and putridness protected by the First Amendment - mangling the lyrics to the ``Star-Spangled Banner'' before a ballgame, for instance, or calling ``Piss Christ'' art. Whether careless or deliberate, though, such expressions of political dissent or contempt anger this republic far more than they threaten it. And the sort of sacred-cow statute which flag-burning provokes pleases the public but threatens it more. Another flag we can get. Another First Amendment - well, if nothing else, it's too brief to pass any legislature today.
People who burn the flag sully themselves, not the Stars and Stripes; the proper reaction (so long as the flag they burn is their own) is part pity, part disgust and exit left. Our Constitution, and the highest court, say protesters have a right to this bait. We have the right not to rise to it, not on the street, not in the courts, not in the statute books. by CNB