Why does burning the flag bother people so much? Someone burning a Torah would really bother me.

Why does burning the flag bother people so much? Someone burning a Torah would really bother me. We don't burn it, we BURY it when it is too old to be kosher. Burning a Quran leads to mass murder for Muslims. I don't know the equivalent in Christianity, maybe burning a cross, but KKK used to do that. How are these equivalent to burning a US flag? It has to do with understanding American civil religion. The flag is SACRED, SANCTA to Americans. American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that foster social and cultural integration. Americans may not know what civil religion is, but they intuitively and viscerally feel the flag is sancta. Read more http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm

The Supreme Court 5-4 ruled it was a form of free speech. Maybe. Maybe the next Court will reverse it.