Howard Metzenbaum Quotes

We all find flag burning repugnant. We find burning crosses repugnant. But they have been burning crosses longer than they have been burning flags and there has been no rush for a constitutional amendment to stop the burning of crosses.

There is no indication - either in the text of the Constitution or in our cases interpreting it - that a separate judicial category exists for the American flag alone. ... We decline ... therefore to create for the flag an exception to the … principles protected by the First Amendment.

A flag burning Constitutional amendment would rip the fabric of the Constitution at its very center.

Who personally has ever witnessed a flag burning?

The Supreme Court decision [Texas v. Johnson, 1989] does not in any way indicate the government is backing off from forcing the flag on people. They just don't want to look too dictatorial in the way they do it.

Offensive or not, those who burn the flag to express their views are exercising a right that our founding generation fought a revolution to secure.

If you buy the flag it's yours to burn.

Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature.

Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee.

The way to preserve the flag's special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong.... Our decision is a reaffirmation of the principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects, and of the conviction that our toleration of such criticism [flag-burning] is a sign and source of our strength.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

… our respect for First Amendment freedoms is one of the few values that still rises above partisan politics.

Burning the American flag should be punishable by loss of citizenship.

The president is supposed to stand up for the First Amendment and stand up for the free press - not put us through the meat grinder.

We have a First Amendment right to burn the flag as symbolic speech. The Constitution protects that right. To spend time and effort on this is ridiculous.

I support the ability of people to be able to burn the American flag if they want to. But people have the right in this country to debate it.

Americans may not always live up to the Bill of Rights, but Americans do not ban books.

Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn't just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea - I hate the government, the government is unjust, whatever.

People may be due the benefits of a democratic electoral process. But in the United States, content curators appropriately have a First Amendment right to present their content as they see fit.

Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far more likely to invoke it, to wave it in the air, this is what we saw from a lot of republicans during the Clinton Administration, and we are seeing the same from Democrats under Bush.

Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag.

I am not content to entrust our free-speech rights to the good graces and whims of Congress and hope that politicians don't abuse their power.

I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.

The Constitution this week is being nibbled to death by small men with press secretaries.