mr. speaker , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
mr. speaker , this marks the sixth consecutive term of congress in which i have engaged in this debate . 
i actually , when i first came to congress and the first time i had the opportunity to participate in this , i resented having to go through this . 
but over the years i have come to believe that this is a healthy debate ; and if we conduct it in a dignified way , the debate actually can be good for the entire country , and people can come away with a greater understanding and appreciation of how delicate our constitution framework is . 
this is about how individuals in our country perceive patriotism , the rights of free speech , the rights of protecting the views of people who quite often they may disagree with in content , but that is what our country has been about . 
so i want to start by complimenting the chairman and the ranking member for the dignified way the debate has proceeded up to this point . 
and i hope that this amendment in the nature of a substitute does not get us off onto a different track , because this is the second or third time i have offered the amendment in the nature of a substitute , and i did it originally for the purpose of trying to get to a higher quality of debate and forcing my colleagues and whoever may be listening to the debate to think about some of these things . 
what does the first amendment mean ? 
what rights do we owe to people in our country whose views we may disagree with ? 
what rights do we owe to the people in our country who may express those views in ways that we disagree with ? 
and i am confident that everybody in this body would think that desecration of the flag , burning of the flag would not be something that we would be supporting , so that is not what this amendment is about . 
my amendment simply says if we are going to do a constitutional amendment , it should not just say that congress has the authority to pass a law that prohibits the physical desecration of the flag . 
whatever we do should be subject to the first amendment to the constitution . 
and the amendment under my version would read , not inconsistent with the first article of amendment to the constitution : `` the congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the united states. '' my amendment , i believe , recognizes the long-standing legacy of the bill of rights . 
in over 200 years of history , our constitution has been amended only 27 times and the bill of rights has never been amended , not once has the bill of rights been amended ; and this proposed resolution would be the first time to do that . 
i understand that the proposed resolution seeks to uphold the integrity of our flag ; but my amendment seeks to ensure that the principles for which the flag stands , particularly freedom of expression and freedom of speech , are also reserved . 
the first amendment to the united states constitution stands for the proposition that all voices of dissent should be heard without governmental suppression . 
disrespect for the flag is offensive to every member of this body , but this is not a debate about patriotism . 
it is not a debate about whether flag desecration is good or bad . 
it is a debate about the values that underlie our constitution . 
and i think former secretary of state colin powell said it best when he said these words : & lt ; center & gt ; & lt ; pre & gt ; [ page : h4920 ] & lt ; /pre & gt ; & lt ; /center & gt ; `` the first amendment exists to ensure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree , but also that which we find outrageous . 
i would not amend that great shield of democracy , the constitution , to humor a few miscreants , '' he said . 
`` the flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away. '' and that is the end of his quote for my purposes today . 
it is the underlying values represented by the flag , not the cloth on which the stars and bars are sewn that our constitution protects . 
those are the values my amendment would preserve . 
mr. speaker , following the horrific acts of terrorism against our country , our citizens were repeatedly cautioned not to cower in the face of terrorism . 
do not curtail our freedoms , we were told , for to do so would be to surrender our way of life , to give up and give in to the terrorists . 
the terrorists would win . 
i think if we pass the amendment as it has been proposed , we give in to those miscreants , as colin powell has characterized them , those people who we disagree with . 
we should be protecting their rights also to free speech . 
i want to put this in context . 
i started by saying that i used to resent this debate and i would tell you , mr. speaker , that i came to congress thinking that , i guess , i thought i had a monopoly on what the meaning of the constitution was . 
and there is a history to that , because i had graduated from yale law school , took my constitutional law from professor robert bork , who became so controversial when he was nominated to the united states supreme court . 
and in that class with me was a student by the name of duncan kennedy who is now a professor at harvard law school and for whom a whole theory of law has been patterned . 
in that class with me , in that constitutional law class , was a guy named paul gewirtz , who is now a professor of constitutional law at yale university law school . 
so it was one of those law school classes that people would die for . 
and we analyzed the first amendment back and forth , right and left , bork against duncan , bork against gewirtz . 
i mean , there were good students in the class and then there were people like me who were sitting in the back of the room hoping that nobody would ever realize that we were there and i could avoid getting involved in that high level of debate . 
but i was listening and understanding that the constitution , the first amendment had different meanings to different people . 
and i thought i got a good balanced view . 
actually , i thought i got a good balanced view until i went back to north carolina and went into a law firm that was generally known as a civil rights law firm . 
and one day my senior law partner , a gentleman by the name of julius chambers , called me in and said , i want you to go to eastern north carolina to one of the counties in which native americans represent a high portion of the population , because a number of the native americans in that county have been charged with parading , using tomahawks , parading around ; and they have been charged with resisting arrest and various other criminal offenses . 
and he did not tell me what they were down there demonstrating about . 
he just told me to go down there and represent them . 
i went and i started my interviews with the native americans , and during the course of my interviews with them , it became apparent that the reason that they had these tomahawks out there and they were demonstrating and parading was that they had a desire not to have to go to school with black people . 
they thought that the schools that they were going to be sent to with african americans were inferior , and they did not want to do it . 
well , i being an african american myself , swallowed very hard and said , what has my law partner gotten me into ? 
i could not wait until the end of the day to get in my car and race back to charlotte , north carolina , and confront my senior law partner . 
i walked in and i said , chambers , why would you send me to this county to represent these indians who were demonstrating against going to school with african americans ? 
his response taught me more about the first amendment than either robert bork or duncan kennedy or paul gerwitz or any of the discussions that i had participated in in law school . 
he simply asked me one question . 
he said , do you not believe in the first amendment ? 
this is a difficult issue , and this is not about patriotism , and i have come to understand over the years of debate that we have had this amendment under consideration , i started out saying to people on the opposite side , people like the gentleman from california ( mr. cunningham ) xz4000910 and people who served their country , you are unpatriotic because you do not agree with me about my interpretation of the first amendment ; the first amendment was passed to protect the right of people to demonstrate and burn flags and you are unpatriotic because you do not agree with me . 
but then i started to listen to what the gentleman from california ( mr. cunningham ) xz4000910 was saying and what my colleagues were saying and studied this issue more . 
could it be that justice scalia and justice rehnquist , two conservative jurists , could be on opposite sides of this issue and it not be a difficult issue from a constitutional perspective ? 
that is , can you imagine the debate that was taking place in the supreme court ? 
i can not imagine that justice rehnquist looked at justice scalia and said , you are unpatriotic because you do not agree with me . 
i can not imagine that justice scalia looked at justice rehnquist and said , oh , no , you are unpatriotic because you disagree with me . 
they came down on opposite sides of the landmark case . 
this is a difficult issue and it is all about what you think ought to be protected under the first amendment . 
it is not about whether you are patriotic or not . 
well , there is one thing i want for sure my colleagues to acknowledge , that this amendment , when it was first offered , started out just saying there shall be no physical desecration of the flag . 
for a couple of years it said that , but then the more recent versions of what we are considering today say that congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag . 
that means that congress must pass a statute , which must then go to the supreme court ultimately to be evaluated . 
so , at some point , the supreme court is going to evaluate whether that statute complies with the first amendment or not . 
in that sense , the language that i am proposing , i am going to first and foremost acknowledge , is redundant . 
it just specifically says that whatever we do as a congress has got to be subject to the first amendment . 
that is redundant . 
as my colleagues know , whatever we do as a congress is supposed to be subject to everything in the constitution anyway , but i want to remind us that , at the same time , we protect the flag . 
a principle of our nation is also to protect speech , whatever that is ; is it burning the flag , is it hollering `` fire '' in a crowded theater ? 
whatever it is , there needs to be some kind of balance . 
and this congress , whether it adopts my amendment or does not adopt my amendment , is going to be subject to that anyway . 
the proponents of this amendment who say that this is going to do something earth shattering or that my amendment is going to undercut their proposal , it is just not the case . 
i just want to be sure that we acknowledge that whatever we do , we acknowledge it , that the first amendment is just as important as the flag . 
just as important . 
some people might argue that it is more important than the piece of cloth . 
my colleagues might argue that it is , that it is equal in value , but we at least need to come to grips with that , and that is what the constitution , that is what the supreme court has been trying to do for a number of years . 
it is not an easy thing to do . 
we have heard a lot of discussion about activist judges . 
this proposal encourages judges to be activists because it says you are giving congress the right to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag . 
do my colleagues think the supreme court is not going to exercise its constitutional responsibilities just because we said congress can prohibit the physical desecration of the flag ? 
it is going to have to . 
it is going to have to decide what that means . 
it is going to have to decide how we balance this provision , this statute , statutory authority that congress gives against the first amendment . 
we are not going to be able to get around the supreme court here . 
we like to punt these things and pretend that we are doing something earth shattering here , but the supreme court , i hope , is still going to be there , and i believe the supreme court is going to wrestle with this as they have in the past . 
mr. speaker , i reserve the balance of my time . 
