Flag Desecration Is Legal

While patriots of left and right debate the question of who owns the American flag, the law has the ticklish task of providing workable answers. Take the case of Stephen Haugh, 23, a Pennsylvania State University student who joined a campus antiwar demonstration on July 4, 1967. Haugh brandished an American flag emblazoned with the slogans "Make Love Not War" and "The New American Revolutionaries." He was convicted of violating a 1939 state law that makes it a misdemeanor to write "any word" on the flag or "publicly cast contempt" upon it.

Haugh appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the ground that flag-desecration laws restrain a demonstrator's free speech and are thus unconstitutional. The court avoided that issue, which civil libertarians are now attempting to bring before the Supreme Court. Even so, the Pennsylvania tribunal has just reversed Haugh's conviction.

As it turns out, the Pennsylvania flag law contains a little-noticed clause that exempts any "political demonstration or decorations." Strictly construing the statute, the high state court ruled that flag desecration is legal in Pennsylvania if it "takes place at a political demonstration." The state legislature may not define "political" to exclude protest groups, the court suggested; as a result. Old Glory can be used as anyone's political prop in Pennsylvania.

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