Statement from Society of Professional Journalists on flag-desecration amendment
09.09.98
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Proponents of an amendment to prohibit desecration of the flag of the United States are unwitting desecrators themselves -- of the protections in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The Society of Professional Journalists joins others who understand the real meaning of the Constitution in decrying attempts to dilute the freedoms the United States has embraced and lived by for more than 200 years.
The flag is a symbol of what this nation stands for. Among those things -- arguably the most important of them -- is freedom of expression. Certainly, burning or otherwise desecrating the flag is an odious way to express one's self. But it has fallen on lean times as a means of protest. It was quite the fad among the politically irate during the Vietnam War, but if there's much of it going on now, it certainly isn't obvious.
This recent public-relations campaign seems like a knee-jerk reaction that has taken a generation to assert itself.
And "desecration" is a dangerously imprecise term. The flag is ubiquitous, showing up on everything from motorcycle jackets to running shorts. One patriot's desecration might be another patriot's decoration.
The flag amendment is ill-behaved. To answer puerile behavior with oppressive restrictions is an overreaction, plays into the hands of the desecrators, and makes the solution immeasurably worse than the problem.
The Society of Professional Journalists, whose 13,000 members make it the nation's largest association of journalists, urges the members of Congress to resist amending the Constitution, one of this nation's most sacrosanct and successful documents.
