A Quote by William J. Brennan
Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.
Related Quotes
We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.
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.
You believe that flag burning shows disrespect towards those who have fought to preserve our freedoms. Punishing protestors shows an even more profound disrespect for the ideals that these people died for. An intact flag is worthless if it no longer stands for freedom. A flag burned to ashes challenges us to remember just exactly what freedom is.
There is no sense and no sanity in objecting to the desecration of the flag while tolerating and justifying and encouraging as a daily business the desecration of the country for which it stands.
We are far more concerned about the desecration of the flag than we are about the desecration of our land.
Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
You're a grand old flag! You're a high-flying flag, And forever in peace may you wave. You're the emblem of the land I love, The home of the free and the brave. Ev'ry heart beats true 'Neath the Red, White and Blue,' Where there's never a boast or brag. But should auld acquaintance be forgot, Keep your eye on the grand old flag.
Flag desecration is not a constitutional issue for the courts. It is a political one that belongs to the people.
Let us remember with devotion that the flag we love and honor is the flag of freedom that flew in victory at Yorktown, the flag the United States Marines raised on Mount Suribachi, the flag Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn's early light. Long may it wave.
Even if the flag burning amendment does become law, the larger problem will remain of how to respectfully dispose of older, tattered flags. Well, fortunately the U.S. official Flag Code has a suggestion about this. "The flag, when it is in such a condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem of display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." Owwwwcchh. In response, the House Republicans are calling for tattered flags to be kept alive via a feeding tube.
Unfortunately a Constitutional amendment that would have empowered Congress to make desecration of the United States flag illegal failed to pass by one vote.
You can salute the flag. You can revere the flag. You can respect the flag. And all of those are fine. What you cannot do is use the flag as a blindfold. You can't use the flag as a blindfold and not see the things you've seen with your very eyes that tell you that what's keeping this country held back is systemic racism.
The Christian icon is not the Stars and Stripes but a cross-flag, and its emblem is not a donkey, an elephant, or an eagle, but a slaughtered lamb.
To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.
Related Authors
Antonin Scalia Quotes
American
Judge
Brett Kavanaugh Quotes
American
Judge
Clarence Thomas Quotes
American
Judge
Earl Warren Quotes
American
Judge
Felix Frankfurter Quotes
American
Judge
Hugo Black Quotes
American
Judge
Learned Hand Quotes
American
Judge
Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
American
Judge
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
American
Judge
Robert Rinder Quotes
English
Judge
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes
American
Judge
Samuel Alito Quotes
American
Judge
Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
American
Judge
Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
American
Judge
Thurgood Marshall Quotes
American
Judge
William O. Douglas Quotes
American
Judge