One of the more enduring slogans from the 1960s counter-culture movement was that “The Issue Is Not the Issue.” What this means is that what was at stake was not any particular policy; instead, the real issue was the entire social structure of assumptions and authority. Whatever the immediate issue may have been, it merely a symptom of a larger issue, and that larger issue was the real goal of protest.
Now, as then, the issue is not the issue. This is why so much effort is being expended to combat an event — flag burning — that happens so little and physically damages only a privately owned piece of cloth. The flag is indeed a symbol: a symbol of social order, traditional authority, political power, and a particular identity. All of these are threatened when their symbol is threatened, attacked, or “desecrated.”
The “social issues” agenda advanced by conservatives promises to impose Order on society — not as in the absence of conflict, but the old social order and a traditional structuring of power relationships in society. In the imposition of this order, expression is a form of power. The forms of expression we use divides us into groups, creates identities, draws boundaries.
When a person is labeled as black, gay or female, what images come to mind? And where do those meanings come from? They are largely created by culture, and insofar as certain groups can control culture, they can also control people’s identities. A powerful means of doing this is via legislation, and one of the first objects of such legislation is limiting forms of expression in order to limit people's ability to create identities independent of what others might wish.
Common Threads
Efforts to ban flag burning have a lot in common with efforts to ban gay marriage, as well as a host of other hot-button conservative issues. The issue is not the issue: it's not about burning or protecting flags and it's not about protecting the sanctity of marriage — it's about retaining control over important cultural symbols upon which people have based their identities.
Why do so many religious and political conservatives insist that same-sex marriages “threaten” and “undermine” traditional heterosexual marriages? The same is said even about domestic partnership laws which would give same-sex partners a few of the same basic rights as married couples. How can one relationship threaten or undermine someone else’s relationship?
Marriage is not just an institution, but also a symbol of a culture’s ideals about sex, sexuality, and human relationships. Such symbols are important — they are a common cultural currency which we use to help create our sense of self. Thus when the nature of marriage is challenged, so are people’s basic identities. By asking legislatures to pass “Defense of Marriage” acts, voters are using the law to create a cultural equivalent of a copyright or trademark on the institution of marriage.
Something similar is behind prohibitions on nude dancing. Claims that nude dancing attract criminal activity are weak — not only is there little evidence for this, but politicians don't ban all bars which also attract problems. What reason could people have for prohibiting others from taking off their clothes behind closed doors and where no one else but consenting adults can see? They feel threatened — threatened by a mode of expression which does not adhere to their own cultural norms about sex and sexuality.
Sodomy laws are an interesting example because the laws themselves are also the symbols of what dominant majority want their culture to be. They were clearly symbolic because they are almost never enforced. Defenders argued that repeals would be an “endorsement” of homosexual identity or “lifestyle” (despite the fact that sodomy is not an exclusively homosexual act). In Supreme Court arguments over Bower v. Hardwick, Georgia’s assistant attorney general said that if the anti-sodomy law were struck down, it could led to a “reshuffling” or “reordering” of society.
This prediction of social restructuring — also made by those decrying same-sex marriage — is correct and underscores my argument. A reorganization of society which recognizes the genuine equal citizenship of historically subordinated groups is frightening to those in power. If those power structures are fundamentally altered, what happens to their identities? Who are they, really? Not many people are willing to answer that question.
Gay marriage. Legalized sodomy. Nude dancing. Women voting. Women in the work place. Men doing housework. All of these changes threaten those who base their identities and power on inequality and the ability to control cultural norms. Flag burning fits in here because it's a way in which people seek to radically alter others' perceptions of the flag as not just a symbol within the culture, but as a symbol of America as a whole.
