[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 105 (Monday, June 26, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6307-H6310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Goodlatte). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. 
Poshard] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  (Mr. POSHARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, this week we will be debating and voting on 
a constitutional amendment to allow the States to prohibit desecration 
of the American flag. We have many important items on our agenda this 
week and time for debate will be short so, therefore, I would like to 
address this issue today, and I would like to do so, at least in the 
beginning, from a historical perspective.
  Our Founders, the people who settled this country, were men and women 
of great faith. They came to this country and lived here for a long 
while under the edict of the King of England. They came here to escape 
the suppression of their freedoms, but found as colonists they were 
still under the control of the King. They were not free to speak their 
minds, to criticize the government. They were not free to assemble, to 
discuss their problems, because the government, the King, was afraid it 
might end up being a grievance against him.
  They were not free to choose their own religious beliefs according to 
the dictates of their conscience. They worshipped in the Church of 
England, or they did not worship at all. The Church of England had the 
official blessing of the state. The church and the state had formed an 
alliance linking themselves together, so the church never had to fear 
the loss of parishioners to other faiths, and the state could continue 
to control the people through the church.
  Newspapers were not free to criticize the government, or they would 
be shut down. The government, if they even suspected a citizen of 
criticizing them, even in private, could take a citizen from his home 
in the middle of the night, charge him with sedition against the 
government, and that citizen could be jailed or punished without ever 
having been allowed a trial. Time and again, they tried to confiscate 
the firearms of the citizens because they feared an armed protest 
against the government.
  In short, the people were not free. Government controlled their lives 
in attempts to force its will upon the people.
  As it is always true whenever a government attempts to force its will 
on the people, the people rebelled. They sent their representatives to 
Philadelphia to form the First Continental Congress, and that Congress 
decided to throw off the bonds of slavery that bound them to England. 
They declared their independence, raised an army, made George 
Washington its commander, and, in their own revolution, won their 
freedom from the oppressive Government of England.
  After the Revolutionary War they went back to their individual States 
and a great debate arose as to whether or not they should even form a 
national government. They so distrusted a central government and its 
potential for ruling their lives that when they thought of a national 
government, all they could remember was oppression.
  But there were certain national issues that had to be dealt with. 
Foreign trade had to be considered, paying off their war debts, and so 
on, and so they sent their representatives back to Philadelphia to form 
a Second Continental Congress, and it was this Congress that had the 
task of putting together a new government. They wrote a Constitution of 
the United States of America.
  Notice how they said the ``United'' States of America. Before, they 
were not so united. They had operated under the Articles of 
Confederation, which gave great powers to the individual colonies. They 
had vast disagreements between themselves, and this new government was 
their attempt at becoming united.
  The Constitution they had written said this new government would 
consist of three branches. No. 1, the legislative, would be elected 
from among the people to make the laws; No. 2, the executive, would be 
elected by the people to execute the laws; and, No. 3, the judicial, 
would be appointed by the executive and approached by the legislative, 
and they would judge and interpret the laws.
  The judicial, the Supreme Court, was appointed for life, because the 
Founding Fathers knew that if the Supreme Court had to be subjected to 
the popular opinion of the people every so many years just to keep 
their jobs, they may do as many members of the legislative

[[Page H6308]]

branch do and vote the popular thing, rather than the thing they 
believe to be right. So they said this sacred trust of judging the law 
is so important, that we will remove this branch from political 
pressure.

  They took this Constitution that they were so proud of back to the 
people of the Thirteen Colonies to be ratified, to be approved. They 
said to themselves, ``Boy, this will be a snap. The people don't have 
to worry about a king. They get to elect two of the three branches of 
government. Many rights are reserved for the states. This is the 
perfect government.'' And they must have sighed a sigh of relief. It 
had been a long struggle, fighting the war, putting this new government 
together. Now all it needed was the people's stamp of approval, and 
that would be easy.
  But the people said, ``No, no, not so fast. Sure, this is a form of 
government with which we agree. It allows us to participate. But we 
just got rid of oppression, and this Constitution doesn't say anything 
about our freedom.'' And the people said, ``Wait just a minute. We want 
our basic freedoms guaranteed in writing, or we don't approve this 
government at all.'' The Founding Fathers, being men of great faith, 
some of them ministers, sat down to amend this Constitution, to 
guarantee the people these rights, their freedoms. They wrote 10 
amendments to the Constitution, which have become known as the Bill of 
Rights, and for over 200 years of America's existence the Bill of 
Rights has remained unchanged, unamended, unaltered.
  I will not mention all of the freedoms articulated in the Bill of 
Rights, but here are just a few: Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, 
press, a fair and speedy trial before our peers, the right to bear 
arms, not having to testify against one's self, protection against 
unreasonable search and seizure.
  But we must speak not only of freedom, but of faith, for the two are 
in inextricably bound together. Nothing will bolster your faith more 
than to read the personal accounts of these great men of faith in their 
struggle with the concept of freedom.
  My understanding over the years of my own faith has been bolstered by 
my understanding of their concept of faith and freedom. In 1990, when 
this issue was before the Congress, I was struggling to try to make 
some sense out of it, and I took my family up to Gettysburg for the 
weekend. Being from Illinois and representing a couple of the same 
counties Mr. Lincoln represented when he was in the Congress, I have 
been a Lincoln scholar my entire life.
  As I walked over that great battlefield, I was reminded of his words 
on the day he dedicated that field. He started his address with these 
words: ``Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on 
this continent a new nation.''
  Now, the importance of that opening is this: Four score and seven 
years ago did not take them back to the Constitution and the Bill of 
Rights drafted in 1787. Four score and seven years took them back to 
1774 and the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Lincoln considered the 
Declaration of Independence to be the founding document of this Nation, 
the document that bound us together as one Nation.
  And what was the premise of this Declaration of Independence? Let me 
state it for you again in Mr. Jefferson's words: ``We hold these truths 
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by 
their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''
  Listen to this again. ``We hold these truths,'' not falsehoods, but 
universal principles, givens, ``* * * to be self-evident.'' They do not 
need to be pointed out or proven or justified. Some things are so true 
that any reasonable examination of the conscience would reveal the 
evidence of their truthfulness. And what is this true that should be so 
self-evident? That all men are created equal and endowed with certain 
unalienable rights.
  Created equal? How? Well, certainly not by position, or power, or 
influence, or even physical or emotional or mental capacity, but equal 
in the eyes of the Creator with regard to love and respect for their 
being, and equal in the eyes of the law.
  And what are these unalienable rights, these rights that cannot be 
taken away? Life, not death; liberty, our freedoms; and the pursuit, 
not the guarantee, the pursuit of happiness.
  And who endows us with these rights? Does man? Does the State? No. 
The founding document of our country says we are endowed those rights 
by our Creator. Government cannot endow us with these rights. 
Government can only affirm or deny what is already given to us just by 
virtue of being created by God.
  President Kennedy spoke of this in his inaugural address, when he 
said, ``These same revolutionary beliefs for which our forefathers 
fought are still at issue around the globe today. The belief that the 
rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the 
hand of God.'' He went on to say that we dare not forget today that we 
are the heirs of that first revolution.
  President Lincoln, in the Gettysburg Address sought to affirm by the 
Government what the Creator had endowed all of our people, equality 
before the law. The Bill of Rights, which our Founding Fathers penned 
some 13 years after the Declaration of Independence, sought to 
articulate some of those God-given rights of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness in a more concrete fashion, and so they guaranteed 
with some specificity what God had already granted, given by virtue of 
creation.
  Now, why do I speak of our country's historical beginnings, and 
especially those beginnings with respect to our rights given to us by 
the Creator and acknowledged so by both the Declaration and the 
Constitution? Because of this reason: This week we will be debating and 
voting upon a constitutional amendment to make it a criminal offense 
for anyone to desecrate the American flag.
  Some will argue that we should not pass this amendment for various 
reasons. One, how do you define desecration? Some believe wearing 
clothing, ties, shirts, and so on that resemble the flag is a form of 
disrespect and constitutes desecration. Others believe lack of respect 
by not standing or sitting when appropriate desecrates the flag. Still 
others believe that burning or walking on the flag is desecration.
  Many argue the mere act of defining desecration creates a legal 
nightmare for enforcement of such a law. Others point out that millions 
of dollars spent trying to pass and ratify this amendment by three-
fourths of the States could better be spent on veterans' health care 
and other necessities of our people.
  Most agree that the flag is held in higher respect today than at 
almost any time in our history, as witnessed by only a scattered number 
of flag desecrations among our Nation among 260 million people, as well 
as the tremendous outpouring of flag displays in our country at this 
time. And many wonder aloud why this is even an issue, with all the 
seemingly complex, almost unsolvable problems facing America today.
  Others will say, ``This flag is mine. I earned my money. I went down 
to the corner hardware store. I purchased this flag with my money. It 
is my private property, and government won't tell me what to do with 
it.''
  But I want us to consider this issue in the light of our beliefs that 
our rights are God-given, what that means to us as a people and a 
nation, and whether we actually believe that as a principle anymore. 
Let me say again that we must speak here not only of freedom, but of 
faith, for the two are inextricably bound together.
  This is what I believe, and I believe it is entirely consistent with 
the beliefs of our forefathers who penned this precious Bill of Rights, 
and I believe it is consistent with the words of my own Bible. If we 
are to examine the nature of the freedoms or rights which God has given 
us, then we must examine the nature of God Himself.
  This is what I believe. God is love, unconditional love. He created 
us as an object of His love because love needs an object upon which to 
lavish itself. God needed us, so He could love us, so He created us in 
His image so that He might love us and fellowship with us and so that 
we might love Him in return.
  The Bible says we love because He first loved us. Our response to 
Him, our purpose for being, is to learn to love in

[[Page H6309]]

the way that He loves us, unconditionally; to love others, but 
especially to love Him.
  God wants our love. But the great loving merciful heart of God knew 
something from the beginning. He knew even before He created us that if 
we were going to learn to love as He loves, He had to give us the 
freedom not to love.
  God is God. He is sovereign. He could have created us with no choice, 
no freedom to choose to love or not to love. He could have demanded our 
love, our respect. He is God. But He knew that love that is not freely 
given cannot be real, if we have no choice. He knew that we could learn 
to love only if we are free. Even our love for God must be freely 
given. He will never force you to love Him. So God, creating us as the 
object of His love, gave us a free will to love or not to love, to 
respect or not to respect. He even gave us the freedom not to love Him.
  I am confident our Founding Fathers understood their faith in these 
very terms. They understood that the great loving heart of God was 
grieved when His children chose in the free will that He Himself had 
given them, to hate Him, to despise Him, to sin against love. But they 
also understood that God continued to love, that He continued to be 
patient with His rebellious children, that He had faith that eventually 
love would win them over. And our forefathers said, to the extent 
possible, we will model this government upon the principles of our 
faith, the principle that we will allow our people the free will to 
choose, to choose to love or not to love, to care or not to care, to 
respect or not to respect, and we will have the faith to believe that 
in their freedom they will choose to love. But, in any case, we will 
not demand it, we will not command it; we will have faith in love 
winning the hearts of our people.
  This issue before us this week goes to the heart of that fundamental 
belief of allowing free will with regard to the issue of respect and 
love.

                              {time}  1300

  Of course there are limitations upon the individual citizens' free 
will with respect to the endangerment of the safety, or health, or 
welfare of our fellow citizens, but these issues do not touch upon the 
heart of this matter which is criminalizing the manner in which an 
individual chooses to differ with his or her government.
  Do we want to criminalize an act of free will when it comes to 
dissent against the Government? Do we really believe that Government 
can legislate love and respect? Remembering that the most precious 
right any American has is the right to speak out against the Government 
when they feel in their hearts that Government is no longer responsive 
to their needs.
  It is only the right to dissent which keeps the Government in line 
and when that right of the citizen is diminished, then the power of 
Government to control grows proportionately.
  However, those who propose this amendment will say, there are a 
hundred ways to show your dissatisfaction with the Government.
  You can march, you can show up at a town meeting and blast your 
Congressperson, you can organize rallies, you can write letters, you 
can vote.
  You do not have to desecrate the flag to show your disagreement, and 
if you do, we are going to punish you.
  But what if a citizen is so in disagreement with this Government over 
an action it has taken which he feels is morally and ethically wrong 
and he chooses to emphasize that disagreement in the most emphatic way 
he knows how, not by the sacrifice of a few hours time marching or 
writing a letter or going to a town meeting, but by taking the most 
precious possession he owns, the American flag, and sacrificing it at 
the feet of his Congress in protest of his Government?
  The question is, Shall we limit dissent against an overbearing 
Government to just those ways that do not matter much, to just those 
ways of which the Government approves?
  Justice Jackson wrote words especially relevant here in Board of 
Education versus Barnett in 1943. He said, and I quote:

       The case is made difficult not because the principles of 
     its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our 
     own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the 
     Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually 
     and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate 
     the social organization. Freedom to differ is not limited to 
     things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow 
     of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ 
     as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. 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. If there are any circumstances 
     which permit an exception, they do not occur to us.

  This principle of sacrificing that which is most precious occurred to 
me for the first time as a young man when I was growing up. I asked the 
pastor in my church ``Why did God have to sacrifice the most precious 
thing he owned, his Son, as a protest against sin, so we may be 
forgiven? Why could he not have sent something that was not so 
precious, a cow, a goat, a bull, something else? Why was it necessary 
to sacrifice his most precious possession?'' The pastor said to me 
``Because sacrificing something less precious would not have gotten the 
job done.''
  I believe it should be the purpose of the flag, as it is the 
Constitution, to invite respect and love, but not to command it, 
because that violates the free will of the individual and love and 
respect not freely given cannot be real.
  It is only the insecure that demands and commands love. That is why 
dictators all over the world must have armies to keep them in power. 
But do their people really love a government which demands their 
respect at the point of a gun? Have the events in Eastern Europe the 
last few years taught us nothing?
  America is secure, not because we have an army to defend the 
Government, but because we have a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, to 
defend the people against the Government, but because we have a 
Constitution, a Bill of Rights, to defend the people against the 
Government.
  We will remain secure not by suppressing the free will of the people, 
regardless of what national or political purpose we believe that 
serves, but by allowing the free will of every single citizen to love 
or not to love.
  If a country is big enough to say to its people, ``I love you and I 
want you to love me but I give you the right not to love if that's what 
you choose. I'm never going to stand over you with a machine-gun in my 
hand and force you to care for me, even though it is your care that I 
need. You are free to love or not to love, to care or not to care, to 
respect or not to respect.''
  If a country is that big in its heart, that secure in its being, that 
loving in its respect for its own people, what choice do you think the 
people are going to make, to love or not to love?
  We have nothing to fear. Neither America nor the flag is in any 
danger, as long as the precious Bill of Rights, which gives both their 
meaning and purpose, stays as it has for the past 200 years, unamended. 
Listen to the words included in the first amendment one more time; 
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
  In 1990, when I was struggling with the previous flag amendment vote, 
I wrote this piece of prose which I called ``Family Matters.''

       Glenn?
       Yes?
       It's God.
       Yes?
       Still struggling?
       Yes.
       What's the problem?
       The problem is I'm nearly 45 years old, and I'm still 
     filled with questions about purpose and meaning and who you 
     are. Who are you anyway?
       I'm love. Unconditional love.
       Who am I?
       You're the object of my love. I created you because I 
     needed you. Love must have others upon which to lavish 
     itself. It creates only that it may love more and I love all 
     of my creation.
       What's my purpose for being then?
       To learn to love unconditionally. To learn to love me and 
     others in the same way I love you.
       Why should I have to learn that? You're God. Why didn't you 
     just create me in such a way that I loved you automatically?
       Because love cannot be commanded. How can I be sure you 
     really love me, or your neighbor, if you have no choice? I 
     created you to be free, free to choose, because it is only in 
     your freedom that you can truly learn to love.
       But what if I choose not to love you?
       That is the risk love takes. It is always the hope of love 
     that the one upon whom love

[[Page H6310]]

     spends itself will freely choose to return that love. But in 
     any case, it can never demand love be returned.
       What will you do then if I choose not to love you.
       I will continue to love you. I will wait. I will trust. 
     Love never fails.
       Glenn?
       Yes.
       It's Thomas.
       Yes?
       You walked over to my memorial last night.
       Yes.
       Why?
       Because I'm struggling with a decision on a constitutional 
     amendment to alter the Bill of Rights, and I need some help.
       What's the problem?
       Some people burned our flag and the country's upset. The 
     President and several members of Congress want to forbid the 
     practice.
       What do you want to do?
       I don't know. I'm torn. I'm a history teacher. I've taught 
     the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to hundreds of young 
     people. I've emphasized the importance of those freedoms that 
     you and others penned in that precious document. I've told 
     those children that these freedoms cannot be compromised. But 
     now we have this issue with the flag. I love the flag. It 
     symbolizes all those freedoms the Bill of Rights guarantees. 
     Couldn't we make just this one exception? Couldn't we forbid 
     just this one way of dissent? Couldn't we pass just this one 
     amendment?
       Would you be willing to pass a second constitutional 
     amendment forbidding the burning of the Bill of Rights?
       No, that's not an issue. Nobody thinks about the Bill of 
     Rights. We see the flag a hundred times a day. It's so 
     visible.
       You mean the symbol has become greater in the mind of the 
     people than the substance behind the symbol? How did that 
     happen? You were a teacher, not to mention a State Senator 
     and now a Congressman.
       Well, what do I do now?
       Maybe you start teaching again, as a Congressman. And trust 
     the people to understand. It's the only way to insure that 
     you leave your children no less freedom than we left you.
       Dad.
       Yes.
       I hate this place.
       Why?
       For lots of reasons. Your stupid rules that say I have to 
     be in by midnight. You won't buy me a car. I'm sick of church 
     every week and it's silly activities. There's a lot more. I . 
     . .
       But we feel those things are best for you. It's only 
     because we love you that . . .
       Well, I don't love you. Right now I don't love you at all. 
     As soon as I'm eighteen I'm out of here.
       Glenn?
       Yes.
       What do we do?
       We remember the proverb, ``Bring up a child in the way he 
     should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.''
       Yes.
       We love. We wait. We trust.
       Are you sure?

  Well, I have decided--I am sure. I am sure the American people love 
this country enough to be able to look past the surface nature of this 
debate and examine its real meaning. The American people, given the 
chance, will show they love this country, and there is no need to force 
them to do it by changing the very document that insures our freedom 
and invites that love.
  And this is the truth. For over 200 years now the faith of our 
Founding Fathers has been justified because we are still the freest 
Nation on the face of the Earth and every country in the world yearns 
for the freedoms in the Bill of Rights.
  Every nation has a flag, but only America has a Bill of Rights. For 
over 200 years now neither the Supreme Court nor the Congress of this 
Nation has seen fit to change even one small letter in this precious 
Bill of Rights.
  Yes, it is true we have gone through periods of time when rebellious 
children in disrespect for the great goodness of this country have 
shown their contempt. They march, they cry injustice, some burn the 
flag, some join the Communist Party.
  In the 1950's, people demanded a constitutional amendment to forbid 
the Communist Party in this country. In the 1960's and 1970's there 
were flags burned all across America in the civil rights and Vietnam 
war protests, and people demanded then a constitutional amendment to 
protect the flag. Today there are more flags flying in America than 
ever before in our history. The Communist Party is not even on the 
ballot in most States, and gets less than one-half of 1 percent in the 
States where it is on the ballot.
  In the last several years, we have had a handful of people out of 260 
million arrested for desecrating the flag. Some are demanding now 
another constitutional amendment to amend the Bill of Rights, to demand 
that we show respect by not allowing a form of disrespect. The Supreme 
Court said no, and Congress agreed. I was one of the Members of 
Congress that agreed.
  I believe our Forefathers would have said ``Leave them alone. If they 
are desecrating this flag out of meanness or ill will, rather than 
honest differences with their own Government, they will reap their own 
reward. They cannot destroy the Bill of Rights by destroying the symbol 
for the freedoms the Bill of Rights gives us. Their ideas will never 
match up to freedom, no matter what they are.
  ``Leave them alone. The ignorance of their act will show the 
bankruptcy of their ideas. However, if you take away their free will, 
even to show disrespect, you will do more injustice to the principles 
upon which this government was formed than they ever could.
  ``Just as we in our sins against the Creator end up bankrupt by our 
rebellion, they will end up the same way in their sins against the 
Nation. Have faith. Have faith that love and freedom will win. Love 
never fails.''
  If we could command respect by the law, we would not need faith, but 
our Forefathers said that faith will be the foundation of our freedoms, 
the faith that people, because they are free, will in the end choose to 
be responsible.
  This is the history book from which I taught the principles of 
Government the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. This is my Bible, 
upon whose words I have staked by life.
  This Fourth of July, because I will do this week what I think is 
consistent with my faith, Old Glory for me personally will fly higher 
and brighter than ever before. God bless America, God bless the Bill of 
Rights, and God bless our flag.

                          ____________________