Gov. Howard Dean said he doesn’t support a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration, but is comfortable with suggesting it to Congress as the Vermont Legislature did last week.
“I favor protection of the flag, but I do not favor a constitutional amendment,” Dean said Monday. “A constitutional amendment should be passed only in very rare circumstances.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning and other forms of desecration are themselves expressions of free speech and therefore protected by the First Amendment. That means the only way to protect the flag is by amending the Constitution.
Dean didn’t agree. Asked if he were trying to have it both ways, he pointed to the wording of the resolution that passed [in Vermont].
“The resolution was crafted so that people like me could take a position supporting the flag without supporting an amendment,” he said.
The Vermont commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Montpelier’s Ron Gascon, said he was satisfied with the wording of the resolution.
“It says the people of Vermont favor protecting the flag from desecration,” he said. “ ... We are in favor of a constitutional amendment, if that’s what it takes. But we are happy to get anything that says Vermonters are in favor of protecting the flag, as a message to our national legislators. ... What we got was better than nothing.”
Gascon said he could only speak for himself and many VFW members he’d spoken to but believed a majority also favored an amendment. He also said veterans were aware that politicians were trying to play to both civil libertarians worried about the Constitution and those who supported amending it. “We aren’t naïve,” Gascon said.