How many times have we heard about people burning and stomping on the American flag?    And how many times have we heard that these people were arrested and incarcerated?  Never?  I think that is correct.

The flag of our Great Nation is spat upon, burned and desecrated in all manner of disrespect and hatred, but the law remains that the First Amendment allows for this heinous mistreatment of Old Glory.

From constitutioncenter.org

When the Supreme Court ruled to allow American flag burning

On June 21, 1989, a deeply divided United States Supreme Court upheld the rights of protesters to burn the American flag in a landmark First Amendment decision.

In the controversial Texas v. Johnson case, the Court voted 5-4 in favor of Gregory Lee Johnson, the protester who had burned the flag. Johnson’s actions, the majority argued, were symbolic speech, political in nature, and could be expressed even at the expense of our national symbol and to the affront of those who disagreed with him.

Justice William Brennan wrote the majority decision, with Justices Anthony Kennedy, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and Antonin Scalia joining the majority.  “Johnson was convicted for engaging in expressive conduct. The State’s interest in preventing breaches of the peace does not support his conviction because Johnson’s conduct did not threaten to disturb the peace,” said Brennan. “Nor does the State’s interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity justify his criminal conviction for engaging in political expression.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing a concurrence, spelled out his reasoning succinctly.

“The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result,” Kennedy said. “And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist dissented, along with John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Byron White. In his dissent, Rehnquist said that, “the flag is not simply another ‘idea’ or ‘point of view’ competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas.”

“I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the Act of Congress, and the laws of 48 of the 50 States, which make criminal the public burning of the flag,” he said.

The battle in the courts about American flag desecration goes back to 1907 when the Court in Halter v. Nebraska upheld a state law that prohibited two businessmen from selling beer that had flag labels on the bottles. In 1968, Congress approved the Federal Flag Desecration Law after a Vietnam War protest. The law made it illegal to “knowingly” cast “contempt” upon “any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it.”

The Court moved closer to the Johnson decision in 1974, when it held in Spence v. Washington that a person couldn’t be convicted for using tape to put a peace sign on an American flag. The decision made it clear that a majority of the Court saw the act as protected expression under the First Amendment.

In 1984, Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. Officials in Texas arrested Johnson and convicted him of breaking a Texas law that prohibited desecration of the flag; he was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas affirmed Johnson’s conviction, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

In reaction to the Johnson decision, which only applied to the Texas flag-desecration law, Congress passed a national anti-flag burning law called the Flag Protection Act of 1989. But in 1990, in United States v. Eichman, the Court struck down that law as unconstitutional as well, in another 5-4 decision.

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” wrote Justice William Brennan, citing the Johnson case.

The case remains controversial to the present day, and Congress has, as recently as 2006, attempted to amend the Constitution to prohibit flag desecration, with the effort failing by one vote in the Senate.

In one of his last public events, Justice Scalia explained why he cast the deciding vote in the Johnson case, on the principal of a textual reading of the First Amendment. “If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag,” Scalia said at a November 2015 event in Philadelphia. “But I am not king.” source

So brethren, it has been deemed a person’t First Amendment right to burn or desecrate in any manner the American Flag.  Is THIS not a Hate crime?

To me it is the ultimate HATE CRIME.

But now see what happens to an American who burns the flag of LGBTQ:

From Foxnews.com

Iowa man who sets LGBTQ flag on fire gets over 15 years in prison

An Iowa man who set fire to a church LGBTQ flag in June was sentenced Wednesday to over 15 years in prison.

Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty last month of a hate crime, third-degree harassment and reckless use of fire, the Des Moines Register reported.

Martinez stole an LGBTQ flag hanging from the United Church of Christ in Ames – about 35 miles north of Des Moines – and set it on fire outside a strip club on June 11, police said.

Martinez admitted to police that he stole the flag from church and burned it because he opposed homosexuality.

Martinez was arrested in June and convicted last month.

He received 15 years for the hate crime of arson, one year for the reckless use of explosives or fire and 30 days for harassment. source

This man who opposes h0mosexuality  because he adheres to God’s Word, took the flag from an apostate church, and set it on fire – making sure that he did not harm anyone.   Here are his crimes:

1. Hate crime of arson (15 year sentence)
2. One year of “reckless use of explosives (setting the fire!)
3. 30 days for harassment

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

It is perfectly fine to burn the American Flag – that is not considered a “hate crime” but if a person holds convictions in their heart about the abomination of homosexuality because they believe God’s Word – they will be sent to jail for over 15 years!!