In his July 8 Letter to the Editor James Edward Mayotte posed some questions to me, the reader, about flag burning. He asked me if I hated America if I didn’t oppose flag burning. He suggested that if I did burn our flag that I should go before a veterans organization “and shout out ‘I hate the USA’ and ‘I burned the flag.’”
He also stated that he and his three generations of family veterans would try to stop someone from burning our flag. He felt the penalty should be imprisonment.
I, also a veteran, respectfully disagree. In 1989 the George H. Bush administration pushed legislation to change the 1st amendment of the Constitution to make flag burning a crime. There were flag burning demonstrations against the 1st Gulf War at that time.
The movement lost its steam when Sen. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska spoke in front of a Senate committee on the issue. Kerry lost a leg fighting in Vietnam and his actions then awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor, the 1st Navy Seal so awarded. He made it clear that the right to burn the flag in protest of one’s country’s actions is why he was willing and honored to fight for his country.
About the same time the US Supreme Court upheld the right to burn a US flag in protest. In Texas vs. Johnson they stated “the court recognizes that the American Flag is a powerful symbol, but the government’s interest in protecting the flag’s symbolic value does not overweigh the individual’s right to free expression.”
So, Mr. Mayotte, to answer your question; although I find flag burning abhorrent, I’m proud of living in America because I have the right to burn our flag in protest.
Nick Perencevich
Concord