One of our strengths as a nation is the right of dissent–but surely the Bill of Rights never was intended to protect those who would contemptuously burn or desecrate the American Flag. Faith in the Supreme Court to interpret the right of this country to protect its sacred symbols was bolstered by the high court’s decision leaving intact the conviction of two avowed Communists for burning a U. S. flag. By an 8 to 1 vote, the justices refused to hear arguments that the convictions violated freespeech rights. The defendants–a man and a woman–were convicted and sentenced to eight months in jail for burning a flag during a demonstration in North Carolina two years ago. They argued the buming was a form of political protest protected by the Constitution. The two were prosecuted under a federal law imposing penalties on anyone who “knowingly casts contempt upon any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it.” The lone Supreme Court dissenter was Justice William J. Brennan who called the majority ruling “censorship pure and simple.” It is difficult t0 harmonize Brennan’s view with the responsibilities that go with freedom and justice, especially when you remember that countless loyal Americans in many generations have died on battlefields for the principles represented by the flag. Indeed it’s quite appalling to imagine the floodgates of insult and desecration of American symbols that might have opened had the court’s majority not ruled as it did. The incongruity of any condoning of flag-burning as proper dissent was dramatically demonstrated in the Vietnam War. While patriotic American POWs in deprived circumstances improvised flags from meager scraps of cloth and pledged allegiance to them, some young people back home were debasing the right of free speech by burning the nation’s emblem. Glimpses of the flag motivated Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem, spurred Gls to victory at Iwo Jima, and inspired poet John Greenleaf Whittier to write: “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag.” To reiterate, legitimate dissent is a right established by the Founding Fathers and must remain inviolate. But this newspaper believes the First Amendment never was intended to sanction destruction or defilement of the flag, symbol of our national heritage and embodiment of principles we hold dear. It is reassuring that the Supreme Court has reinforced this concept.