The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - A state appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that a flag-burning was protected by the Constitution, saying a city has a right to regulate open burning.

The 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in the case of two men who burned a gay-pride flag during a parade in Columbus in 2001. The men, Charles Spingola, 47, and Thomas Meyer, 49, both of Newark, had been charged with open burning, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by as much as six months in jail.

But former Franklin County Environmental Judge Richard Pfeiffer ruled that the flag-burning was protected under the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

The appellate court said regulating open burning "is unquestionably within the city's constitutional power."

"Requiring that one obtain a permit before engaging in such conduct places only a minor restriction on free expression," visiting Judge William Harsha wrote for the court in a unanimous opinion. The fire code does not prohibit flag-burning, he said, but does ban ceremonial burning without a permit.