Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991                   TAG: 9102220463
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

VOTE UNWAVERING ON FLAG BURNING

In a 30-minute debate, senators argued back and forth over the First Amendment and whether the right to free speech extends to desecration of the country's strongest symbols.

"The people want that flag protected and revered, and it has not been," said Sen. Granger Macfarlane, D-Roanoke. He said the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that a Texas law that banned flag-burning was unconstitutional, is contradictory to the desires of most Americans.

The public, Macfarlane said, is "crying out for the politicians to stand up and speak out," he said. "They want the Constitution amended because they want to send a message that a person in this country can go only so far."

Sen. Robert Russell, R-Chesterfield, argued that a constitutional amendment, which would require ratification by two-thirds of the states, would encourage a "free and open national debate" on the issue.

But opponents warned that changing the Constitution to protect the flag would damage the right to free speech.

Sen. Dudley Emick, D-Fincastle, said the call for banning flag-burning presents the public with "a false sense of patriotism."

Burning the flag is "precisely a symbolic act" in protest, he said. He cited Vietnam veterans who burned flags in anger over poor treatment from the Veterans Administration and Germans who burned the swastika in the 1930s to protest Hitler's regime.

In a trembling voice, Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk, said her brother serving in Saudi Arabia "would disown me as his sister if I voted for this."

By banning flag-burning, she said, "we are saying that a symbol is worth sacrificing liberty for."

The House of Delegates held the flag-burning resolution in a committee last year and passed it earlier this session.

After Congress failed to start the process for a constitutional amendment last year, representatives of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars became active at the state level hoping to pressure Washington into reconsidering.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY