The flag desecration amendment

[Chaerophon]

Burning a flag is offensive. I don't care what country it's from. It may be a form of protest but a country's flag is a powerful symbol.

I regard it as hate speech.

First of all, I don't burn flags, nor do I advocate their burning. Nonetheless, that you take offense does not make it hate speech. Let's take a strong example to see if your characterization holds water... would it be hate speech if Black Americans had (as I'm sure some did) burned the flag during the civil rights movement in a symbolic gesture to indicate the divide between the nation's ideals and the reality of segregation and racism? Who are they hating? America? I don't think so - in fact, I think it is more true that they are demonstrating their love for America and its ideals. White people? If white people were all that the flag represented, then maybe, but I think that it is pretty clear that this is not the case. That you may not agree with their position or that you may be offended by the act does not make it hateful.

The origin of KKK cross burnings IS hateful - but not towards Christians. According to some brief research, the first cross burnings were initiated after early KKK members were inspired by a Scottish tradition whereby a cross was burned high on a hill in order to summon the clansmen to battle. THIS tradition stems from the emperor Constantine's vision of a fiery cross in the sky on the eve of a battle. Why hate speech? Because they are calling the brothers to arms against a particular social group (or a number of social groups), in this case, primarily blacks, but also Asians, jews, gays, and, generally speaking, anyone else who isn't a white protestant.

Unless the burning of a flag is meant to indicate a call to violence against Americans or a subversion of America's guiding constitutional/ideological norms (not just reinterpretation as in equality of right vs. equality of opportunity, but, e.g. a disavowal of the worth of equality of respect for all citizens) then I don't believe that it constitutes a hateful act. It is not necessarily being burnt as an act of hate against those who carried it into battle. Rather, it may be being burnt in memory of the goals and ideals for which those men and women who have carried the flag into battle sacrificed their lives, which may, in such a case, be perceived to have been lost. The burning of the flag, then, is intended to symbolically represent the forgotten reasons for their sacrifice - ie, this is no longer the America that those brave men and women protected, etc.

With that being said, I reiterate: I don't burn flags. I think that it is in bad taste. However, that does not, to my mind, make it necessarily hateful; In this case, it seems to me that hate is all about intent.