“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

In the summer of 1984, during the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, Gregory Johnson marched in protest of the Reagan administration, including the government’s attitude toward nuclear war.

At the steps of the Dallas City Hall, Johnson burned an American flag. Johnson was arrested and convicted of desecration of a venerated object.

He appealed the decision, and Supreme Court sided with him. The Court found that Johnson’s act of flag desecration was “symbolic speech protected by the first amendment.”

In the years following that decision, Congress has repeatedly tried to pass an amendment prohibiting the desecration of the flag.

Last year, the House of Representatives approved the amendment. And in light of election year politics and easily persuaded Senators, the amendment will probably pass the Senate as well.

“I think that desecrating our flag is like spitting on the memory of our war dead,” said Iowa Senator Charles Grassley.

He may be right. Burning the flag may in fact be a dishonor to veterans. But Grassley is forgetting an important detail.

In this country, spitting is legal.

Americans may not like flag burning. We may find it distasteful and pointless.

But the fact is, the flag is just a symbol. It is just a piece of cloth, meant to remind us of our country, which thousands have died to protect.

Those men and women died for the country, not the flag.

And more importantly, those men and women died for the freedoms which make our country worth living in. They died for the freedoms the flag represents, which include burning the flag as a means of expression.

Grassley, like most House representatives, is missing the point of keeping flag desecration legal. The point isn’t that flag burning is good and we should all do it. The point is that it is necessary in order to preserve our other freedoms.

Iowa representative Jim Leach, the only Iowa congressman to vote against the amendment, said it would “undercut the very essence of the system of governance for which the flag itself stands.”

If the flag desecration amendment becomes law, Old Glory will take a bigger hit than a torching could ever inflict.