The Honorable Steve Rothman
2303 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
I was mortified to learn of your vote on June 22 for House Joint Resolution 10, favoring a Constitutional Amendment authorizing the Congress to prohibit the so-called "desecration" of the flag of the United States. Some of my neighbors claim you were "pandering" or "caving in" to the agenda of the ultra-nationalistic lunatics in this country who have long sought such laws in their quest to deify the state. I cannot agree. After five successful campaigns and very comfortable margins of victory in your last four elections, you have no need to pander or cave in to anyone. I can only believe you voted for this resolution because you sincerely support the idea of an Amendment that would give you the power to penalize people who damage a piece of cloth.
It is atrocious and disgraceful that you would vote for this resolution. Do you really believe a flag should be established as "sacred" - with its sanctified status enforced through legal penalty - while our precious liberties are profaned in the process? I've been a practising Episcopalian for some ten years and have studied the traditions and history of religious institutions in the United States for a much longer period of time. As a person of faith, I find the very idea of flag "desecration" to be repugnant, a crass form of idolatry not worth a second thought by a free people. One would have hoped the vast historical record of oppression, tyranny and suffering wrought by the unity of church and state from antiquity to the modern era - the very history the founders of this republic considered when they deliberately and consciously separated the two institutions! - might have given you pause.
I've read a lot of pettifogging nonsense in the media about how veterans groups in this country are howling for passage of laws to "protect" the flag, but this coverage is extremely misleading; it's probably closer to outright propaganda. These organizations do not speak for all veterans; they probably don't speak for most of them. No one bothers to interview organizations like Veterans Defending Bill of Rights or Veterans for Peace, both of which are adamantly opposed to a flag "desecration" amendment. I've spoken with countless veterans who find the idea of the proposed amendment an outrage. According to the 2000 Census, there were over 20,000 more veterans living in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District than in the 9th Congressional District, and they constitute a larger percentage of the adult population in that district as well, yet your colleague Rep. Holt had no problem honoring their service by voting against House Joint Resolution 10.
Perhaps the most appalling thing about your vote is the way it signals your willingness to take seriously the endless, meaningless, phony "culture war" - the bread and circuses of our time - that has gripped this country for the last thirty years. When one considers the life-and-death matters of public policy that should be occupying the full attention of the Congress - the war in Iraq, the President's relentless crusade to destroy what remains of the New Deal, the reckless and irresponsible fiscal policies that grant the wealthiest people in this country multi-billion-dollar tax breaks while the rest of us are forced to bear the costs of a government that mostly serves the rich, the ongoing environmental and health care crises, and so forth - something like a flag "desecration" amendment is a trifling matter indeed. This vote was an opportunity for you to take a stand against the wasting of the Congress' time on the idiotic politics of the "culture war." Instead, you endorsed the terms of this cynical endeavor and then added insult to injury by voting to enshrine a flag, liberty be damned.
Sincerely,
Richard K. Kearney
Teaneck, NJ
