In his majority opinion in the 1940 Minersville School District v. Gobitis case, which dealt with the question of whether school districts could require students to salute the American flag, Felix Frankfurter wrote: “The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment. Such a sentiment is fostered by all those agencies of the mind and spirit which may serve to gather up the traditions of a people, transmit them from generation to generation, and thereby create that continuity of a treasured common life which constitutes a civilization. ’We live by symbols.’ The flag is the symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences, however large, within the framework of the Constitution.”
What would Tertullian do?
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