Analysis Of Lee Johnson Burning Of The Flag

During the Republican National Convention in 1984, in front of the Dallas City Hall, Gregory Lee Johnson burned the American Flag in protest of the Regal administration policies and some Dallas corporations. The burning of the flag caused the various eye witness to feel seriously offended by the action that Johnson preformed. After this action Johnson was charged with desecration of the flag and venerated object of the state of Texas. The state court affirmed that the burning of the Flag as a desecration of a precious symbol and gave Johnson a year of prison and a $2,000 fine, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal revised the decision by saying that the burning of the flag was a form of expression and that the first Amendment protected him.
The Court found that Johnson’s actions fell into the category of expressive conduct and had a distinctively political nature. The fact that an audience takes offense to certain ideas or expression, the Court found, does not justify prohibitions of speech. The Court also held that state officials did not have the authority to designate symbols to be used to communicate only limited sets of messages, noting that “[I]f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea because society find the idea itself offensive or
Rehnquist acknowledged the special place the flag holds as the “visible symbol embodying our nation,” nothing that “millions and millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence.” Because of its unique position, Rehnquist concluded that is was constitutionally permissible to prohibit burning the flag as a means of symbolic expression. He argued that Texas’s prohibition on flag burning did not regulate the content of Johnson’s message, but only removed one of the ways in which this message could be expressed. Johnson was left with “a full panoply of other symbols and every conceivable form of verbal expression” to convey his message. A ban on flag burning is thus consistent with the First Amendment, Justice Rehnquist concluded, because it is not directed at suppressing particular ideas, but rather seeks only to protect the special significance of the flag as the symbol of the United