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My parents taught me to believe that through the creative act, we're able to transcend and give a response to desecration.
Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag.
It was almost a desecration to put a building on the Boulder Turnpike, which is now U.S.-36 and is almost backyards and even junkyards all the way up. We didn't have to put development just cheek to jowl all the way up to Boulder. There's enough room in Colorado! But we did.
We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.
We know there are poets who are chosen: by what or whom, we no more know than what lies beyond our final breath, or what caused a certain action which resulted in the fulfillment or the desecration and collapse of what we most cared for in life.
Unfortunately a Constitutional amendment that would have empowered Congress to make desecration of the United States flag illegal failed to pass by one vote.
Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature.
Flag desecration is not a constitutional issue for the courts. It is a political one that belongs to the people.