The Revolutionary Communist Party and Flag Burning During Its Forgotten Years, 1974–1989

Abstract

Origins of the Controversy Since 1989, the American political scene has been convulsed by repeated controversies concerning whether or not “desecrating” the American flag (generally defined as burning or otherwise physically damaging it) should be a criminal offense. The immediate background to these controversies is the 1989 Supreme Court ruling in Texas v. Johnson (subsequently reaffirmed and broadened by the Supreme Court’s 1990 ruling in U.S. v. Eichman), which held that physical flag desecration for the purpose of expressing a political viewpoint is protected under the First Amendment. Ever since these rulings, an organized movement led by the American Legion has sought to amend the Constitution to overrule the Supreme Court and authorize the outlawing of flag desecration. The proposed constitutional amendment was defeated in 1989 and again in 1990 (it received majority backing in both houses of Congress, but not the required two-thirds support required for an amendment). Subsequently it was revived and passed the House by well over the needed two-thirds vote in 1995 and 1997; the proposal failed by three votes in the Senate in 1995 and was never voted on in the Senate before the 105th Congress adjourned, due to crush of other legislative business in late 1998 and especially due to the eclipsing of virtually all other issues in that year by the Monica Lewinsky affair. Amendment backers reintroduced the proposal in early 1999, and as of mid-June were expected to succeed easily once more in the House and were within two votes of victory in the Senate. Since 49 state legislatures have already petitioned Congress to endorse a flag desecration amendment, should Congress pass such an amendment it would almost certainly be ratified by the required three-fourths (38) of the 50 state legislatures and become the firstever change in the First Amendment. The distant origins of the flag desecration controversy date back to the turn of the century, when, in response to pressure from union veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic and hereditary-patriotic organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the states began to outlaw flag desecration in response to their complaints that advertising, commercial, or otherwise unorthodox use of flags and flag imagery was demeaning the national symbol. Thus, an 1895 pamphlet issued by the proponents of the early movement to ban flag desecration