Netflix Explained Series: Flags

[abbey1227]

4 ARRESTED IN BURNING OF FLAG ON CAPITOL STEPS
By Linda Wheeler     October 31, 1989

Four demonstrators were arrested yesterday when at least one American flag was burned on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest a new federal law banning desecration of the flag, U.S. Capitol Police said. The demonstration here was one of several around the nation in recent days to protest the anti-flag desecration law, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday without President Bush's signature. Bush, saying a law would not be upheld by the Supreme Court, had sought a constitutional amendment instead. It is not known whether a single group organized the rallies. Among those arrested here yesterday was Gregory Lee Johnson, 23, of Richmond, Ind., whose flag-burning protest during the 1984 Republican National Convention led to a Supreme Court ruling in June that such actions are protected under the First Amendment, said Capitol Police spokesman Dan Nichols. Earlier this month, Congress approved the Flag Protection Act of 1989 -- making physical abuse of the flag a criminal act punishable by a year in jail and a $1,000 fine -- in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. On Friday, hours before the law went into effect, demonstrators burned an American flag in Berkeley, Calif. Early Saturday morning, protesters in Seattle removed a large American flag from a federal government building and burned it. Randy Rowland, a spokesman for the group that organized the event there, said it was a "festival of resistance" designed to show outrage over what he called the government's attempt to "ram patriotism" down the country's throat, according to a wire service report. In New York City's East Village, about 150 people gathered to protest the law. The organizer of that protest was a group calling itself the Emergency Committee to Stop the Flag Amendment and Laws, according to United Press International. At the protest here, some protesters chanted "burn, baby, burn," as one flag was in flames, and another shouted, "stop the fascist flag . . . oppose it," the Associated Press said. The AP said that a spokeswoman for the protesters, Nancy Kent, read from a prepared statement: "We defy your law . . . . We challenge you. Arrest us. Test your statute. Take it back to the Supreme Court and try once again to claim it is all consistent with your constitutional standards of free speech." Capitol Police were not sure how many flags were burned because little was left for evidence technicians to piece together. "We ended up with a shoebox full of charred scraps," Nichols said. He said that his department was put on alert for flag-burning demonstrations after the law went into effect, but that officials had not expected one on the Capitol steps yesterday. "The demonstrators told the press they would burn a flag at the Supreme Court," Nichols said. But about noon, he added, "they changed their minds and led a whole bunch of journalists over here." Nichols said the four protesters stepped away from the gathered media and suddenly lit one or more flags. "It happened so quickly that few people other than the press saw it happen," he said. Nichols said that officers rushed in and tried to stamp out the fire, but that they eventually had to use chemicals to extinguish it. Nichols said all four demonstrators were charged with violating the new law, as well as demonstrating without a permit and disorderly conduct. Besides Johnson, he said, the others were Shawn Eichman, 24, of New York; David Gerald Blalock, 39, of Johnstown, Pa.; and Scott W. Tyler, 24, of Chicago.

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This was always an interesting argument to me.

Flag burning is the ultimate in free speech, imo

I also find it funny that Scalia was one the deciding factors in ruling on this case.

[Prometheus]

I would never burn a flag - except as a method of disposal - but I would defend to the death the right of another citizen to burn one in protest.

That said, I wouldn't personally like the flag-burner very much and would probably think very little of them as an American and as a human being, but I'd make sure they could do it.