The flag is sacred. So is freedom

My grandfather instilled in me a deep love for the American flag. I knew him as “Tata,” and he was born and raised on the island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. He was a member of the Guam Insular Guard, similar to the National Guard. On Dec. 8, 1941 — the same calendar day as Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, but already Dec. 8 across the international date line on Guam — he joined a small group of Marines in Hagåtña to defend against the Japanese invasion force. The Japanese army quickly overwhelmed the defenders, and Tata was a Japanese prisoner of war for the remainder of the conflict.

Tata never told me much about the war, but he told me one thing that has stayed with me for the last 50 or so years. He told me that The Star-Spangled Banner and the U.S. Flag always brought tears to his eyes. He later recounted that story to a historian collecting oral histories of the war years, so I get to see him and hear his voice on video to this day.

I recall my first business trip to Washington, D.C. After work, I visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and saw the Fort McHenry flag. This was the original flag from the War of 1812 that prompted Francis Scott Key to write the “Star-Spangled Banner,” the poem that became our national anthem. It must have been dusty in the museum that day, because as I listened to the national anthem and looked at that flag, I remembered how much it meant to my grandfather (and how much it meant to me), and tears came to my eyes.

This week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag. My reverence for the flag runs deep, but my reverence for the freedom it represents runs deeper still — which is why I cannot support this executive order.

This is not the first time I have publicly opposed efforts to criminalize flag burning. For over a decade, I served on Republican platform committees and conventions at the local, district, state, and national levels. Whenever the issue arose, I spoke out forcefully against it. Many others argued just as strongly in favor, and at times the debates grew heated. Once, when my emotions ran too hot, I felt it necessary to make a public apology — for my words, but never for my principles.

I don’t know what Tata thought about flag burning, but I know that many veterans believe that it should be illegal. While veterans groups are vocal about flag burning, not all veterans believe it should be illegal. This week, I posted on social media that I was having trouble choosing a topic for this column. The first person to send me a private message in response was a good friend, a veteran. He wrote:

Column idea: flag burning. As a veteran, I was willing to die for your right to burn the flag. Of course, if it violates some other law; starting a fire where illegal, destroying someone else’s property, etc. we already have laws for that. My 2 cents. Have a great day.

This week, Jay Carey, a retired decorated combat veteran, burned a flag in protest in front of the White House. Carey was not arrested specifically for burning a flag. He was arrested for violating burning regulations, and I believe that his arrest was appropriate.

To be clear, I find flag burning abhorrent. I could hardly stand by and watch someone do it. But the First Amendment was not written to protect pleasant or polite speech. It exists to protect the speech that unsettles us — the visceral, the uncomfortable, even the offensive. Yes, even flag burning.

Protecting liberty means protecting even the speech we despise. The Supreme Court affirmed this in 1989, when in Texas v. Johnson it ruled 5—4 that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment. Even conservative icon and originalist Justice Antonin Scalia, who personally detested flag burning, sided with the majority, insisting that his job was to uphold the Constitution, not his preferences. In 2015, Scalia said this about his vote in Texas v. Johnson:

If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag, but I am not king.

President Donald Trump is not king either.

David Chung is a Gazette editorial fellow. david.chung@thegazette.com