"Is that courageous or, to be blunt, subversive?" Parker asked his audience, made up of several journalists and several rows of veterans in uniform.

In response to the criticisms, Bennett's office issued the text of a speech he delivered on the Senate floor on July 1 in which he reiterated he is "not demonstrating indifference to the issue of reverence for the flag" but that he is "reluctant to amend the Constitution to address a non-problem." Flag desecrations, which have been rare since Vietnam, he stated, nowadays only seem to occur "when we have the debate on amending the Constitution to prevent it."

According to the poll, 57 percent of Utahns think it's "extremely or very important" to make physical desecration of the American flag against the law; an additional 20 percent think it's "somewhat important." A majority of Utahns, 55 percent, think that the flag should be protected under "all circumstances" as opposed to "limited circumstances."

Brady said, "We don't want to make felons out of flag-burners. To me, it's like a traffic violation," although he added that "not everybody agrees with me."

The flag is a symbol of the Constitution, he said. "If we can recapture the flag, we can begin the march to recapture our Constitution" against court decisions that take away the rights of Americans to own property, pray, post the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes, say the Pledge of Allegiance and define marriage, he said. "It will be a long march."

Responding to the poll, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and lead Senate sponsor of the flag amendment, said in a news release Wednesday that Utahns — "as patriotic as they come" and from Logan to St. George — thank him for fighting to protect the flag.

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