Dianne Feinstein: “I rise as the main Democratic sponsor of this amendment. I have given this a lot of thought for a long time. I believe…”

“I rise as the main Democratic sponsor of this amendment. I have given this a lot of thought for a long time. I believe what we have before us is language that is essentially content neutral. It is on conduct--not speech. I will make that argument later on in my remarks, but I begin my remarks with how I came to believe that the American flag is something very special. For those of us who are westerners, the Pacific battles of World War II had very special significance. Reporters were not embedded, there was no television coverage, and the war in the Pacific was terrible--island battle after island battle--the death march at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and onward. On the morning of February 24, 1945, I was a 12-year-old. I picked up a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle. There on the cover was the now iconic photograph done by a Chronicle photographer by the name of Joe Rosenthal, and it was a photograph of U.S. marines struggling to raise Old Glory on a promontory, a rocky promontory above Iwo Jima. For me--at that time as a 12-year-old--and for the Nation, the photo was a bolt of electricity that boosted morale amidst the brutal suffering of the Pacific campaign. The war was based on such solid ground and victory was so hard- pressed that when the flag unfurled on the rocky promontory on Iwo Jima, its symbolism of everything courageous about my country was etched into my mind for all time. This photo cemented my views of the flag for all time.…”