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Claim: An American flag should be burned if it has been allowed to touch the ground.
Origins: One 
of the signs of creeping old fogeyism is finding out how many of the irrefutable truths we learned as youths turned out to be false. Today's being Flag Day reminds me of yet another cardinal rule I assimilated as a child which I later discovered was wrong: that if an American flag is allowed to touch the ground, it should be burned.
The rules we observe with respect to our flag are laid out in the U.S. Code. (These codes specify how the flag should be displayed, but they do not establish any legal penalties for those who violate them.) The notion that the Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Code ("Respect for flag") states in
The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.
And in paragraph (k) it states:
The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
The fallacy about burning a ground-touched flag arises from the mistaken beliefs that a flag that has been allowed to touch the ground is no longer "suitable for display" and must therefore be destroyed, and that the only proper form of disposal for a flag is to burn it. These beliefs reflect a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the flag code.
Although the flag should never be allowed to touch anything beneath it (including the ground), it is not automatically rendered unfit for display Also, burning is not the only acceptable method of disposing of a flag, just the preferred one. The intent of the code specifying a "dignified way" of disposal is to prevent a Last updated: 14 December 2007 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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