DEBATERS FACE OFF OVER FLAG BURNING

The Supreme Court says it is okay to burn the American flag as a form of protest and that a person desecrating the flag in that manner is protected under the Bill of Rights' First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.

John L. Cook agrees.

Peter D. Kinder disagrees.

Cook, a practicing Cape Girardeau attorney, and Kinder, associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian newspaper, engaged in a debate on flag burning before the Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau Monday during a full-house meeting at the Holiday Inn.

The debate program was part of a Bill of Rights series that has been presented at the Rotary Club meetings over the past few weeks. It leads up to the bicentennial anniversary of the Bill of Rights, which was adopted Dec. 15, 1791.

The program Monday was arranged by Rotary member Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. and was moderated by member Joe Low, professor of speech communications at Southeast Missouri State University.

Cook, who admits that it would anger him to see someone burn the U.S. flag, presented the Supreme Court's majority position that Gregory Lee Johnson was, and should have been, protected under the First Amendment.

Kinder presented the court's minority position that the flag, which embodies all that America stands for, is a unique symbol deserving of special protection.

In June 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that burning the flag is protected as free speech under the First Amendment. The court's action came in a case brought by the state of Texas, which sought to reinstate a one-year prison sentence given to Johnson. Johnson burned a U.S. flag during a protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas.

Proposed amendments by the House and Senate failed to produce amendments to ban flag burning. A proposed amendment would have to be approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate, and then be ratified by 38 state legislatures. It never passed the House and Senate.

"This country was founded on foundations and ideals of freedom," said Cook. "And as much as we love the flag, we love freedom more. The flag only symbolizes what this country is all about."

Cook told the group that when Johnson burned that flag he was expressing a point of view. "He wanted to show that America was a terrible place to live," said Cook.

Cook quoted Justice William Brennan, who was the court's oldest and most liberal member at the time. Brennan said, "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

Later in the debate, Cook said he stood for liberty, and that the Bill of Rights "is your birthright; don't sell it short." He said, "If the courts put a limit on your freedom of speech, there will be times when it will want to limit other freedoms."

Kinder countered: "Flag burning is a vicious violation of democratic civility. Any desecration of the flag is vicious."

Borrowing from John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, "Barbara Frietchie," Kinder related the tale of heroic actions of a 90-year-old widow to protect the flag during the Civil War.

Confederate troops occupied Frederick, Md. in 1864 during the Civil War. Frietchie was the only person to risk their anger by flying a Union flag. "The story goes that Stonewall Jackson saw the flag and ordered it shot down," said Kinder.

Frietchie grasped the flag as it fell, and uttered these words the poet Whittier made famous, "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country's flag."

Jackson was so moved by the old woman's bravery that he permitted her to fly her flag as the troops moved through town.

"Before the court's decision of 1989, previous Supreme Court judges never doubted the right to protect the flag," said Kinder. "It's time now that a constitutional amendment be adopted to protect the flag. Its future is at stake."

Kinder said the spoken part of Johnson's 1984 protest was not questioned. As the flag burned, Johnson and other protesters chanted, "`Red, White and Blue', we spit on you."

Later in the debate, Kinder questioned what would be next.

"`Anything goes' is the new meaning of the First Amendment," he said. "I guess if someone hates the memory of Abraham Lincoln, they can go to his monument in Washington and spray-paint it."

By contrast, Kinder described the feeling of U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima during World War II, when they finally reached the top of Mount Suribachi after hand-to-hand combat at a cost of 6,000 American lives.

"They didn't unfurl the Constitution; they unfurled the American flag," said Kinder. "The flag is unique. It is entitled to reverence and should be protected."