On Tuesday, June 14 - Flag Day - Senators Orrin Hatch (UT) and Max Baucus (MT) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 19, a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from physical desecration. Its text is identical to the House companion bill, H.J. Res. 13: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." There were also five additional original cosponsors: John Barrasso (WY), Chuck Grassley (IA), James Inhofe (OK), Richard Lugar (IN), and David Vitter (LA). The day after the resolution's introduction, four more senators signed on as cosponsors: John Cornyn (TX), Roy Blunt (MO), Mike Enzi (WY), and Lindsey Graham (SC). As the primary sponsor, Sen. Hatch will also solicit his Senate colleagues to become cosponsors of the measure.

I do not feel that desecration of the U.S. Flag falls under the right to free speech.  To me, free speech should have it's limits, and this is just one are where the line needs to drawn.  I fully support this law.  I know the supreme court would disagree with me, but frankly, I don't care what they think.  No one should ever have the right to walk over the symbol of our freedom.

po0131 says ...

I don't like flag burning any more than you do, but I do get a little weirded out when they start fooling around with free speech.  I also don't like the Black Panthers telling people to kill white babies or the Klan spouting their nonsense, or that bunch of people who call themselves a "church" who protest at the funerals of slain soldiers saying they were killed because God is exacting punishment on America for tolerating homosexuals either, but that's what makes our country different from the rest of the world.  If you set limits on free speech, it's not free any longer.  That's just my opinion.  Now, if someone wants to burn MY flag, they'd better pack a lunch, because it's going to be a long day.

Bump, or even if they want to go buy one and burn it on my yard, that too is a long day !

I do understand limitations,. I mean, my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose right? Or my right to scream FIRE in a theater (or any other public place for that matter). I think that flag burners should expect the EXACT same treatment as anyone else trying to incite a riot. A lot of us feel VERY strongly about those stars and bars, and we too have the right to express how we feel about their meaning. There are so many families, including mine, that have shed an awful lot of blood for our flag, and we don't take kindly to watching someone disrespect it !

NO ONE, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOULD BE ABLE TO BURN THE FLAG OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY !!!  IF YOU DONT LIKE OURS GO FIND ONE YOU DO LIKE LIVING UNDER

While we have a right to free speech, and it has been extended to non-speech items, we do not have the right to unlimited free speech.   Example virtually every state has laws against filing a false police report, and we have slander laws as well, are they inpositions on the right to free speech.  What I am saying is that some limits are accepted and acceptable to the right to free speech.

In Justice Kennedy's concurrence with the majority opinion, with which he very reluctantly sided, he states his internal conflict on the matter:

For we are presented with a clear and simple statute to be judged against a pure command of the Constitution. The outcome can be laid at no door but ours. The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result. And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases. *** Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt.

I think this is a waste of our tax dollars. Regardless what side of the argument on which you fall, there are more important issues that have been long ignored by these bozos. This is political grand-standing. The Supreme Court will obviously side with the Liberal Left-Wing nut job that'll challenge it. However, if someone tries to burn a flag in my presence will have the honor of experiencing me expressing my First Amendment right to kick their a$$ (of course, it'll be while I am dousing the flames with their limp body).

The first amendment to the constitution guarantees freedom of  speech which has been twisted to freedom of expression.  Freedom of speech should be liimited to the spoken or written word ( as much as I despise them, that means the Westboro Babtist's signs are covered).

Thus IMO you can say "burn the flag" but the actual burning of a flag is not a speech issue.

I'm cognizant of what the supremes say and they have been wrong WAY too many times over the years.Free speach,my dieing a-s.Freeken punks should be deported.It simply amounts me me as spitting on the graves of our service men and women who have given their lives.

I agree with:

SGT405 The Flag of the United States of America is one in the same!

DonnaLynn If you don't like it go to another country!

po0131 & Cat_D If you do so, it's going to be a LONG day!

& 36TR It is a crime!