IBERVILLE PARISH—Iberville Parish Council votes unanimously Tuesday night, approving an ordinance to make burning any official flags in the parish illegal.
Iberville Parish Council Chairman Matt Jewell says, “This is mostly a symbolic thing we passed for the veterans. We feel like we are a very patriotic parish and we love our veterans and we honor them every year and we’re going to continue to do that.”
This ordinance formed from Jewell who promised local veterans a year ago that he would try to put a law in place after students in Ohio were burning the flag before Veterans Day. Jewell says, “We are a very patriotic parish we don’t have those problems here but we want to have something in place in case that happens.”
The ordinance would protect the American flag, the Louisiana State Flag and any official flags of Iberville Parish. Penalties for violating the law would be a $1,000 dollar fine and/or thirty days in jail but it would cover only unincorporated areas of the parish.
According to the Plaquemine City Attorney, the city of Plaquemine can’t enforce the ordinance until it’s approved through the city council. “City’s laws supersede ours, which means their laws come first so if they don’t have a law on the book and they burn it within the corporate limits of the city, then it would probably be alright,” says Jewell.
There’s already a flag desecration ordinance in the Federal United States Code of Laws, as well as the State of Louisiana Revised Statutes, but so far, no government in the country has been successful at passing this type of law because of the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.
In 1989, the United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson and again in 1990 U.S. v. Eichman, ruled that due to the first amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal, state, or municipality) to prohibit the desecration of a flag, due to its status as “symbolic speech.”
Jewell believes after political changes in the country, that now is the time. He says, “Justices I think in recent times have struck it down, the less conservative but more conservative we feel like the Supreme Court is changing back and we think it’s probably the best time to introduce that ordinance.”
Plaquemine Police Chief Kenny Payne agrees with this ordinance. He says, “I’m ex-military, 37 years in law enforcement, we have many many police officers here that served in the military and my personal opinion on it is that it’s a contradictory of freedom of speech that crosses a line.”
The ordinance will now go to the Iberville Parish President, J. Mitchell Ourso Jr. where he can either sign it or veto it. If he signs it, within 30 days it will be law and then it goes to the Sheriff’s Office. So far, the Iberville Sheriff does not know about this ordinance.