FREEDOM AT STAKE IN FLAG-BURNING ISSUE.

Byline: the Rev. James Lawson 

THERE is no epidemic of flag-burnings in America today, but there has recently been a rash of attempts by Congress to make flag desecration a hot-button issue - so hot it supposedly justifies amending the Bill of Rights.

Last year, Congress came within two or three votes of passing a flag desecration amendment; this year, yet another flag amendment is making its way through the legislative channels, a blatant play for votes in the name of patriotism.

But American patriotism can't be legislated, because the right to criticize the government is at the very heart of what it means to be an American. It was dissent that brought this country into being, and dissent has helped make us what we are today.

As an early member of the Southern movement for justice and liberty, and a follower of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I have experienced firsthand how vitally important free speech is to the progress of democracy. The civil rights marchers who risked life and limb to overturn racial apartheid in the 1950s and '60s not only drew upon this most important of American traditions, but strengthened it through nonviolence. Are we, on the eve of the new millennium, going to begin chipping away at the very right which has allowed us to continue to grow as a nation?

National cohesion cannot be dictated by Congress; it must come about through national debate. As Dr. King preached, we must not be afraid of tension, because tension opens the door to negotiation. And we must not go back on the promise of free expression extended to all Americans in the Constitution, for the exercise of this right has helped and will continue to help us - in Dr. Kings's words - ``rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.''

As a member of the clergy, I am also disturbed by the flag amendment's interference with the free exercise of religion. As established by the Bill of Rights, Congress cannot decide for the American people what symbols are holy and divine. But in adopting the religious term of desecration to refer to the flag, that is precisely what Congress is attempting to do. Is Congress now in the business of consecrating symbols of a national religion, as was done in ancient Rome? Has the flag (our Caesar) now become divine?

In 1943, a West Virginia school board expelled the children of two Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing to salute the flag and subjected their parents to imprisonment for child neglect. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in his majority opinion overturning the expulsion, ``If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.''

Though fewer than five flag-burnings occur in any given year, should flag desecration become a federal crime, then the rights to dissent and the free exercise of religion will be weakened. It is appalling that supporters of this amendment would undermine these fundamental American principles in the name of patriotism.