Flag Amendment

* Re “Senate Turns Down Amendment to Bar Desecration of Flag,” Dec. 13:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) seems sad that “we have no king, we have no state religion” and seeks to establish an idolatrous state religion surrounding the flag, which he sees as an overriding symbol that uniquely unites a diverse people--failing to realize that most of us regard the principles of our unique Bill of Rights, with which he seeks to tamper, as the overriding symbol of our nation.

JOHN MAYS

Pacific Palisades

* What would have happened in Nazi Germany to anyone who publicly desecrated the Nazi flag? A fine, imprisonment, or death? The U.S. Senate acted correctly by preserving our right of political expression, regardless of how offensive it might be to some of us to witness the desecration of our national flag.

The Reserve Officers Assn. of the United States was invited to participate as one of the founding organizations of the Citizens Flag Alliance. The executive committee of the ROA rejected that invitation because protecting our national flag from desecration is not a national security issue, and because protecting our constitutional freedoms is much more important than protecting any symbol of those freedoms.

COL. ALFRED M. DIAZ

San Dimas

* We don’t need an anti-flag-burning amendment.

The prescribed method of disposing of a soiled flag is to burn it. Any flag that has been touched by someone who wants to discredit it has been soiled enough to require its proper disposal.

PAUL STRENGELL