I'm in shock! This is being discussed in CA?

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Council asks for ordinances restricting flags
Hillary Borrud
2007-04-19 20:41:00
HESPERIA — The season when many Americans display flags to observe Memorial Day and the Fourth of July is fast approaching.

And in Hesperia, a councilman wants to make sure that only one nation’s flags are on display: America’s.

As the City Council meeting drew to a close Wednesday night, Mayor Pro Tem Mike Leonard asked the city staff to research the possibility of an ordinance that would restrict residents from flying flags other than the Stars and Stripes.

Flags of the city and state should be allowed, Leonard said when Councilman Tad Honeycutt asked for clarification, but not flags of other
nations.

“Yes!” shouted a woman in the audience. “I’m glad I came to this council meeting.”

Mayor Rita Vogler then asked the city staff to look into ordinances that would require printed materials to be in English only and all companies working with the city not to employ illegal immigrants.

It was new City Attorney Eric Dunn’s first council meeting, and he said Thursday that it was too soon for him to comment on the legality of the three requests.

“I just heard about these requests myself,” Dunn said. “I will be reviewing them with the city manager.”

Peter Eliasberg, a managing attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said that restricting what flags can be displayed would be a violation of the First Amendment.

“I couldn’t think of anything that is more unconstitutional than that,” Eliasberg said. “It’s clear that flying the flag is a form of speech.”

Such a law would receive the highest level of scrutiny from the courts, he said.

Leonard said he came up with the idea for the ordinance after watching protests by illegal immigrants who were waving the flags of their countries on television in recent weeks.

“I know some people that have come here legally and got their citizenship legally, and it makes them mad, too,” he said.

Raymond Herrera, who is the national rally spokesman for the Minuteman Project, said he agrees with all the ideas put forward by Vogler and Leonard.

“It’s protocol that you never fly another nation’s flag above ours,” Herrera said. “Our nation is one culture. We’re not the United Nations.”

When cities print materials in languages other than English, they prevent immigrants from assimilating to American life, Herrera said.

Vogler said she would like to begin requiring materials to be printed in English only to prevent future costs of multilingual services, and to encourage immigrants to learn English.

Legal, business and customer service problems might make Vogler’s ideas difficult to implement, Honeycutt said.

Eliasberg of the ACLU said any ordinance restricting what flags can be flown would not stand up in court.

Restrictions intended to protect the flag that trample on civil liberties send a bad message, he said. “The flag is a symbol, but it’s a symbol of a lot of underlying values that are in the Bill of Rights.”

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