Editorials

Sen. Orrin Hatch’s (UT) office continues to solicit additional cosponsors for Senate Joint Resolution (S.J. Res.) 19, a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from physical desecration.

Remarks of Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady
The American Legion 83rd Annual National Convention
San Antonio, Texas August 28, 2001

It is always such a great pleasure for me to be with you and share the warmth of your presence. I am awed at the legacy you represent. Think of the humble beginnings on that St. Patrick's day so long ago. The dedication and struggle of those who went before.

First published in the Washington Times, March 22, 2000

It's the Constitution. The 1989 Supreme Court decision defining flag burning as speech should outrage every American, flag burners as well as flag waivers. That decision defiled our sacred Constitution and no American should stand still for that. After the decision, Ninety percent of the Congress voted for a statute which would have corrected the Court's erroneous flag decision. The Court struck it down.

(Written for the CQ Researcher, July 1999)

Sixty three percent of the Senate recently voted to protect our Constitution by denouncing the 1989 Supreme Court decision which declared flag burning to be "speech." Their vote defended our right to protect our flag, a right we enjoyed since our Nation's birth, a right defended by 4 Chief Justices and other justices on 5 Supreme Courts in the last century. It is a right demanded by some 80% of the people and for which 49 States have petitioned the Congress.

On March 28, a small group of veterans will assemble in the nation's capital in support of a constitutional amendment to protect their flag. These veterans are Medal of Honor recipients who have been here many times in their tireless struggle to recapture Old Glory, the symbol under which they gave so much of body and soul on America's battlefields.

On the Fourth of July we celebrate our birthday, a colorful and exciting event, but the true beauty of our Declaration of Independence that marks the day is that it led to our Constitution. In between these two events, George Washington helped adopt our flag, the symbol for a new nation, our trademark, and the glue that united 13 very diverse and independent colonies. It was this triumvirate that gave mankind true freedom, the very source of our dignity as humans.

January 14, 1999 - I recently read that we are in a “post patriotic” period. If this is true, it is truly tragic. Patriotism is the lifeblood of a democracy, yet many think we are bleeding to death. Poll after poll shows that more than 80 percent of us think patriotism is in serious decline. And it is no wonder.

December 6, 1999 - If the veterans we honor today could return to the America they saved, they would be horrified to see what has been done to the Constitution they died to protect. The one issue that would hurt the most would be that the flag under which they fought, which embodies their Constitution, has been turned to a rag; and to hear the elitist say that they died on the battlefields of America so their flag could be burned on the street corners of America.

May 14, 1998 - In some faiths there is a doctrine on grace. It teaches that there is a treasure chest filled with grace. And it was filled by the sacrifices of Jesus and the saints. It's available to all of us to help us as we struggle to do what is right. We can all draw from the treasure chest of grace through no particular merits of our own, but simply because of god's love for us.

At Arlington Cemetery each year at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we honor America’s nobility — our veterans. We are again inspired by their sacrifice and we look around us in wonder at their gifts. Perhaps this Veterans Day we might ask why they gave so much of body and soul for us.

A Flag Amendment, House Joint Resolution 54, was introduced in the House of Representatives on 13 February by Reps. Gerald Solomon (R-NY) and William Lipinski (D-IL). Soon, the same amendment will be introduced in the Senate. Now begins the battle.

A new millennium is an appropriate time for thinking about the first principles of American society, and such an effort is now underway, involving all three branches of the United States Government. We are in the midst of the Presidential primary season, and voter turnout is reaching record-breaking levels, as Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates vie over the future course of the nation and its leadership.

In what was surely one of the most moving moments of the recent House debate on the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde spoke of the current dangers facing the nation, and his hope for the future.

If you believe the recent published editorials and press accounts, the recent passage of the proposed Flag Protection Amendment by the required two-thirds majority in the United States House of Representatives is a silly orgy of emotion by unscrupulous politicians, a dagger struck at the heart of the First Amendment, or a misguided attempt to clutter up the Constitution. It is none of those things, but is, rather, a healthy sign that popular sovereignty is alive and well in this nation.

May 2006 - Each member of Congress, when he or she begins to serve, takes an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, as required by Article VI of that fundamental document. That oath ought properly to be regarded as an obligation to recapture the Constitution through the passage of constitutional amendments when the U.S. Supreme Court misconstrues it. Constitutional amendments have been rather rare in our history (only 27 so far in a little more than 200 years), but at least three of those have been passed in order to correct Supreme Court decisions regarded as erroneous.

We are now on the verge of a third—and, in all probability, final—stage in the debate about a constitutional amendment restoring the power of Congress to protect the American flag.

Once again, a large majority of the U.S. Senate is committed to send the Flag Amendment to the states for an up-or-down vote by representatives of the people. Once again, this majority may be just shy of the required two-thirds. And, once again, a few “swing” senators are coming up with old excuses for stifling a uniquely democratic process of constitutional lawmaking.

May 2006 - This spring, the American Flag was in the news again. Several high schools forbade students to display a flag – or even to wear red-white-and-blue clothing. Their reason was stark. The flag, they said, is controversial. It represents, they claimed, one "point of view" with which some disagree, basically no different from a Mexican flag – or, for that matter, a swastika.

Thirty years ago, as a young Air Force disc jockey, I entertained our troops in Vietnam. My signature wake-up call, "Good Morning, Vietnam!" eventually became the title of the hit movie based ever so loosely on my radio career in Saigon.

On Thursday evening, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took a seat in the "colored" section of the green-and-white Cleveland Avenue bus that would take her home. A quarter moon was rising and there was a slight chill in the air as the Montgomery, Alabma, bus began to fill with other folks - white and black - each making their way home.

When the bus stopped at Court Square -- a place where African-Americans had been sold to the highest bidder less than 100 years earlier -- a white man boarded the bus, and there were no seats remaining.

It has been a decade since a shocking 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidated century-old federal and state laws banning the physical desecration of the Stars and Stripes. The only way the American people can reclaim the right to protect our flag from being burned, torn, trampled or spat upon before our very eyes is through a constitutional amendment, slated to be voted on by both houses of Congress before Memorial Day.