flag-burning amendment

If you all didn't already know, there is a flag-burning amendment going through Congress.  It has already passed the House and needs only one vote in the Senate.  Our illustrious Senator Feinstein is in favor of this amendment.  I just called her DC office and told the staffer I disagreed with the Senator.  She simply registered my complaint, didn't ask me about it. 

 

Feinstein's statement is here.  She says, "This amendment would do one thing only: give Congress the opportunity to construct, deliberately and carefully, precise statutory language that clearly defines the contours of prohibitive conduct."  She goes on, "I believe a Constitutional Amendment returning to our flag the protected status it has had through most of this nation’s history, and that it deserves, is consistent with free speech. (...) Securing protection for this powerful symbol of America would be an important, but very limited, change to Constitution."

Contrast her quote with that from the ACLU:
""The symbol should not be valued more than the freedoms it represents," said Terri Ann Schroeder, ACLU Senior Lobbyist."

Here is a good editorial in the LA Times about why flag burning should not be constitutionally banned:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-flag27jun27,1,1143144.story?coll=la-news-comment.  (I've copied it below, it appears you need a login to the Times site.)

If you are opposed to this amendment to the Constitution (this ain't just a law) folks, you can contact her office at http://feinstein.senate.gov/ or call her at (202) 224-3841.

 

-hgs

 

 

EDITORIAL

The case for flag-burning

An amendment banning it would make America less free.

June 27, 2006

THERE ARE MANY ARGUMENTS AGAINST a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw "the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." Let us count the ways in which the amendment, which is disturbingly close to the 67 votes required for Senate approval, is unworthy of that body's support:

 

•  It's a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. There has been no epidemic of flag-burning since the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that destruction of Old Glory as a protest was symbolic speech protected by the 1st Amendment.

•  The reintroduction of this amendment is part of the Republican Party's election-year attempt to rile up its social-conservative base, a "panderama" that already has produced a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, which failed earlier this month. That reality alone should cause Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to reconsider her support for the flag-burning amendment.

 

•  As Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed out, "The 1st Amendment has served us well for over 200 years. I don't think it needs to be altered." Placing a no-flag-burning asterisk next to the amendment's sweeping guarantee of free speech is a mischievous idea, and it could invite amendments to ban other sorts of speech Americans find offensive.

But the best argument against the flag amendment is the one some opponents are reluctant to make for fear of political fallout: It would make America less free.

Rare as flag-burning may be, a nation that allows citizens to denounce even its most sacred symbols is being true to what the Supreme Court in 1964 called the "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

In that decision, and in 1989, the court interpreted the free-speech protections of the 1st Amendment generously but correctly. The Senate, including Feinstein and fellow Democrat and Californian Barbara Boxer (who has opposed a flag-burning amendment in the past), should let those decisions be.

VOTE DAMMIT!

Sitting here watching the news. Man-on-the-street interviews, people saying that nothing about the election interests them: same old mud-slinging, nothing that interests them about the issues... so, the gubernatorial race sucks, there are other interesting races (Dem Secretary of State and Dem Controller, for starters) that if you look past the "big" race, you might find something. Besides, while the issues NOW don't concern you, future issues may and then you'll care who makes those decisions. But, if you don't vote now, you have NO RIGHT to bitch later. You have to participate in the process in order to have a say. I know, you'll bitch anyway. Talk to the hand, your words will fall on deaf ears if you haven't participated in the process.

AIDS: 25 years of an epidemic

So, today is the 25th anniversary of the CDC report that 5 gay men were treated for a rare form of pneumonia, later to be identified as AIDS. I lived near "ground zero" of the AIDS epidemic. I grew up in San Francisco, in the Haight Ashbury, just over the hill from the Castro. We had gay neighbors, both upstairs and next door. It was no big deal to me that two men were living together in each of those flats. As long as they loved and respected each other, I didn't care what they did in their bedrooms. Heck, I don't care what ANYONE, hetero- or homosexual does in their bedrooms... it's none of my business! (On today's news, I heard a "man-on-the-street" interview the Gay/Straight Alliance Parade in Los Altos. The man said he didn't *really* have a problem with this sort of thing, as long as they didn't rub it in his face. What the hell does that mean? Does that mean you don't want to see two men holding hands or two women hugging? Fine, then hetero couples shouldn't either. Don't rub it in his face. Sheesh!) Anyway, I digress...

My DH sent an email to his family today, mainly what he said at http://mootepoint.blogspot.com/2006/06/grim-milestone.html, except with the following links:

The SF Chronicle also has several articles online at http://www.sfgate.com/aidsat25. In case you don’t have time to look at all their extensive coverage, here are a couple of highlights:

This 1982 article by Randy Shilts (author of And the Band Played On) is a tear-jerker:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/17/DDGVB5133M1.DTL

The article contains a “more things change, the more they stay the same” line: “And when one gay victim of pneumocystis lapsed into a semi-coma, his relatives tried to strike his lover's name from the guest list and forbid him from seeing the dying man”

This picture is worth a quick look. It’s a heartbreaker that everybody should see as a reminder:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=1&f=/c/a/2006/06/04/ING97J7LD31.DTL

I humbly request that everybody take a moment to remember the half million Americans who have died over the last 25 years, the lost generation in Africa, and the continued problem throughout the world--and hope that we can solve this soon. We lit a yahrtzeit candle last night."

I took his email and forwarded it to my mom and sister with the following commentary:

"I'm forwarding D's email to you because we lived at ground zero of the start of the AIDS epidemic.

I remember the friends that disappeared. I remember the guy upstairs who just wanted to die at home when that eviction crap went on. (God help me, I forget his name.)

I was in tears reading the article and picture D. referenced. While AIDS is no longer just a "gay man's disease", I get angered by the young gay men who don't know to remember and don't take precautions because AIDS is now manageable. Why not try to eradicate it than live with it? Look at what's happened in Africa, in poor communities, in our community.

And today, of all days, Bush is giving a speech in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban "gay marriage" and the Senate is debating this issue. Have they no compassion for those who have died? For those who continue to live with HIV/AIDS? "Gay marriage" is not unnatural to me. Again, I think of the guys upstairs and next door on Central. I don't think growing up around the "gay lifestyle" has made me a bad person or weakened my marriage. Sure, D. and I have seen our share of challenges, but frankly, "gay marriage" is not one of them!

I just want to scream at the people who don't want their kids around the "gay lifestyle", at the people who think that their marriage is threatened by "Adam and Steve" getting married. At those people who won't talk about AIDS because it's a "gay disease", a "poor disease", a disease in Africa that doesn't affect us.

D. keeps telling me I had an unusual childhood. Maybe I'm just more enlightened than most folks, but I just don't understand, I really don't and it makes me very sad."