The only time that prohibitory laws can come into effect is if the mode of expression involves destroying the property of another or physically harming another person. If I go into a bookstore and buy my own copy of the bible, then, at a rally protesting religious dogma, set that copy on fire or tear it up, the millions of bibles in the homes of bible believing Americans remain unharmed. All I have done is to destroy my own copy of the bible. Thus, if someone buys their own American flag and burns it or otherwise physically damages it, in order to protest somethng, the flags owned by millions of other Americans and the flags flying on government property remain unharmed. Since this amendment seeks to prohibit desecration, it is essentially a blashpemy law.
Desecration is a religious term that applies only when something is deemed sacred.
This amendment thus violates the fundamental tenets of a secular society by formally transforming a secular symbol into something sacred. Please contact your two U.S. Senators and let them know that you are voting constituents in their repsective state and that you urge them to vote against this butchery of the First Amendment. For government to now step in and tell us what we can do with our own personally owned property, that is, our own flags, violates the conservative principle of limited government. Once we start amending the First Amendment to deny protection for various forms of unpopular expression, we start down a slippery slope that will soon reduce the First Amendment to nothing more than an umbrella that is removed the moment it begins to rain. As freethinkers and non comformists to the prevailing theistic sentiments that permeate our culture, we have a great stake in perserving all the protections of the First Amendment as intact as possible.