Washington – Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee plans a vote this week on a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would give Congress the right to outlaw flag desecration. Debate could begin as early as today.
The House routinely has approved the flag amendment by broad majorities, but the Senate twice has fallen short of the necessary two-thirds vote needed to send the question to the states for ratification. This year, the amendment is expected to obtain 66 of the 67 required Senate votes.
“This is the place to stop it,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who believes it would harmfully limit the right to free speech. “This will be one of the most important votes we cast in this session.”
Dousing flags with kerosene and setting them on fire, which became an eye-catching way of protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, happens infrequently today. The pro-amendment Citizens’ Flag Alliance lists only three instances of flag desecration this year, including one involving a drunk who tore two small flags from a sailor’s monument in West Haven, Conn.
Meanwhile, the Gallup Poll has chronicled a drop in public support for amending the Constitution to protect the flag, down from 71 percent in 1989 to 55 percent last year.
Still, the idea rubs emotions raw. All 50 states have adopted resolutions in recent years advocating a flag-protection amendment, and some polls show backing in conservative states as high as 70 percent. Amendment backers and opponents agree that the Senate is the only obstacle in the way of ratification by three-quarters of the states, as the Constitution requires.
