C. Fred Kleinknecht
1733 16th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009–3103

Respect for our flag can be our generation's anchor for a renewed sense of moral value and personal responsibility.

In the past 200 years, the United States Constitution has only been amended 27 times. One important proposed amendment, known as the Flag Protection Amendment, that Congress has considered year after year states that, "Congress and the states shall have the power to prohibit physical desecration of the Flag of the United States."

The proposed amendment doesn't fix the welfare system, balance the budget, stem the deficit, or fight crime. There's no easy fix to any of these important issues because most solutions involve hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. The proposed flag protection amendment, however, is budget neutral and gives back to Americans something they treasure, something an overwhelming majority of Americans can and do agree on.

To advance this cause, Scottish Rite Freemasons in America, both in the Northern and Southern Jurisdictions of the Rite, have joined with other fraternal, civic, veteran, and professional groups to form a national coalition known as the Citizens Flag Alliance (CFA). Drawing strength from the motto on the great seal of the United States, E Pluribus Unum, "out of many, one," more that 90 national organizations formed a single organization, the CFA, dedicated to using the constitutionally guaranteed amendment process to overturn an unpopular 1989 Supreme Court decision. At that time, five of the nine judges decided for all of us that flag burning and other forms of physical mutilation of "Old Glory" are acceptable forms of expression protected by the First Amendment. In so many words, five justices ruled that the American flag is equal among all symbols and is just a piece of cloth, not worthy of special protection.

Previous efforts in Congress to overrule the Supreme Court have failed, and this year's attempt also fell short of passage by a slim margin. Yet, as Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon told reporters in 1995, the flag protection amendment is unique because it had not originated in Congress; "It was brought to Washington by a genuine grass-roots movement." Hopefully, this issue will finally be decided in the next Congress, for the CFA will not stop its efforts. Then, hopefully, two-thirds of the House and Senate will vote to let the states decide whether or not they want to reinstate flag protection laws.

As Americans and Freemasons, we know the importance of morality in our lives and in our society. Our nation would cease to exist without a solid foundation of morals and an allegiance to common principles that govern behavior. The concept was so important to the ancients that the Latin language conceived the word civitas, which means the sense of community that holds nations together.

The concept of civitas is particularly important here in the United States where we are a nation of many races, religions, ethnic backgrounds, and political parties. Through wars abroad and domestic turmoil, the one symbol that unites us is our flag. The writer Henry Ward Beecher (1833–1887) captured the power of the American flag when he wrote, "A thoughtful mind when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag, the government, the principles, the truths, the history that belongs to the nation that is set forth."

The American flag is such a symbol and must be protected by all appropriate laws. Opponents of a flag amendment to safeguard our national emblem warn that the flag protection amendment is a "slippery slope" that will begin to encroach on the right of free speech. There is nothing in the proposed amendment that will limit anyone's right to say or write anything they want about our nation's leaders, government policies, or even the flag. If there is a "slippery slope," it began with the Supreme Court's flag burning decision. The decision invalidated flag protection laws in 48 states, some of which had been in effect for over 100 years. What the court did, in essence, was take away the people's right to protect their nation's flag from physical desecration.

At a time when there seems to be more and more debate over a lack of values and personal responsibility in our society, we need to anchor this generation, and all those that follow, to those things we have in common. Let's start by preserving the flag.