Subject: Ken Loves the Flag
Issue: General
Date: May 16, 2004
Author: Ken Larsen

KEN LARSEN LOVES THE FLAG.
He Claims He Always Has.

Dr. Ken Larsen, Personal Choice Party candidate for Governor of Utah, recalls his youthful love affair with the flag. "I fondly remember the thrill I felt, as a 14-year-old Eagle Scout, when it was my turn to carry the Stars and Stripes," says Larsen.

Larsen remembers he loved not only the flag, but the Constitutional Republic for which it stands. As a youth, he says, he studied the Constitution and the words of the Founders as if they had been written by the finger of God on tablets of stone. He believed it was his sacred duty to defend the Constitution and the principles of freedom on which it was founded.

Larsen claims it is his profound love for the flag that has prompted him to ask the United States District Court to strike down the Utah law against Flag Desecration. "The law against flag desecration is an act of flag desecration," says Larsen. "It violates the most fundamental principle for which the flag stands, namely the right to disagree. Imagine a man telling a woman he will hurt her if she doesn't say she loves him. Would you want that kind of relationship? Neither would I, and neither would the flag. Patriotism, like any other love, should come freely from the heart, and not from fear. The anti flag desecration law reminds me of the Nazi crowds saluting Hitler because it was required. The principle of free agency says people cannot earn the spiritual rewards of true patriotism if they are not free to choose otherwise, including the desecration of their own flag," preaches Larsen.

Larsen wants everyone who salutes and respects the flag to do so freely, without compulsion. "How," asks Larsen, "can we force patriotism and still claim to be free?"

Dr. Larsen will be moderated the State Convention of the Personal Choice Party in May. Each member and candidate is free, personally, to interpret the meaning of Personal Choice. For Larsen, Personal Choice includes each individual's personal choice regarding the treatment of their personal flag.