The House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the ability to penalize people for desecrating the American flag. The final vote was 286-130.
Analysts think the Senate may also get the necessary two-thirds majority needed to pass the proposed flag burning amendment which would send it to the states for final ratification. Informal polls show that 65 Senators support or plan to support the flag burning amendment, just two short of the number needed to pass it.
The House has already approved a flag burning amendment on six occasions but it has never passed the Senate. Questions remain as to whether or not the popular amendment interferes with the First Amendment right to free speech.
The fight for a flag burning amendment began after a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that said flag burning was free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Supporters of the proposed amendment say that since the September 11 attacks, public support for this has risen even higher. 'Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,' California Republican Congressman Randy (Duke) Cunningham told the Associated Press. 'Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.'
New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler summed up the opposing view by saying, 'If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents.'
The proposed amendment reads, 'The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.'
If approved by the Senate, it must be ratified by at the legislatures of at least 38 states within seven years.
The Senate is expected to take up the proposed amendment after the July 4 recess.
