Editing Flag Desecration Amendment (section)

==Proposed amendment==
The full text of the amendment (passed several times by the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]]) is as follows:

{{blockquote|text=The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.}}

This proposed amendment would empower Congress to enact statutes criminalizing the burning or other "desecration" of the United States flag in a public protest. The wording is permissive rather than mandatory; that is, it permits Congress to prohibit flag burning, but it does not require it. The question of whether flag burning should be banned would become a matter for the legislature to decide, rather than the courts.

Proponents of legislation to proscribe flag burning argue that burning the flag is a very offensive gesture that deserves to be outlawed. Opponents maintain that giving Congress such power would essentially limit the principle of [[freedom of speech]], enshrined in the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution]] and symbolized by the flag itself.

The theories underlying these First Amendment principles include: a robust national discourse about political and social ideas; individual self-realization; the search for truth; and speech as a "safety valve". These concepts are expounded in both the majority and dissenting opinions of the cases described below. There Justice [[William J. Brennan Jr.]] noted that the "principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute; it may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger."<ref>''Texas v. Johnson'', 491 U.S. at 428.</ref>