Skip to main content
My long-ago Girl Scout troop leader was the former commandant of a women’s military brigade. She taught us rules for displaying, storing and disposing of the American flag that are still tattooed on the inside of my skull. Yet I look around and I see flags flying in the rain, flags flying at night, etc. What happened? —Betsy R.
Readers of a certain age may recall that during the first Bush administration the flag was so revered by some (mostly Republicans) that there was a serious push for a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. This was in response to the Supreme Court’s 1990 finding in United States v. Eichman (not that Eichmann) that desecrating the flag was protected speech.
Given that today Amazon sells actual American flag toilet paper and Republicans routinely sport Old Glory sweatpants, you might suppose that Eichman also kiboshed all those quaint old rules about not dragging the flag on the ground, or letting it get rained on, or having it made into horse dildos. But no! The U.S. Flag Code is still in force—though “in force” may be a strong way of putting it.
First codified in 1923 by, I shit you not, the National Americanism Commission, the Flag Code was officially written into law in 1942. The timing allowed Congress to discreetly replace the original code’s “Bellamy salute”—a stiff arm raised at a 45-degree angle—with the modern, hand-over-the-heart gesture we use today.
Every other rule, though, is the same as it was in 1923. No using the flag in advertisements, making it into clothing, placing writing or images on it, making it into napkins or anything disposable, or displaying it at night without illumination. When the flag becomes too tattered and decrepit to serve as a fitting symbol for the United States (assuming something can BE too tattered and decrepit to symbolize the United States) it should be disposed of by respectful burning.
Upon reading all this, the phrase “more honored in the breach” probably springs to mind. But here’s the thing: The Flag Code doesn’t actually BAN anything. It’s strictly advisory, full of phrases like “should be” and “it is customary.” It was set into law so people who care about observing polite customs and social norms would know how to do so. And since the last of those people died in 2003, these days the flag is pretty much on its own. Wish it luck!
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.