If an american is attacked or discriminated by his status as american, is he protected by anti discrimination laws?

Question

Recently a person has been jailed for 16 years for burning a flag which represents a group of people meeting certain conditions in United States. This was deemed as discrimination and a hate crime if I understood correctly. But we also see a lot of times people burning american flags and holding foreign countries flags in United States (which supposedly represents americans) and we hear this is protected free speech. So I wondered why one is protected and the othe isnt, and I've heard about protected classes. According to this,

Protected classes under Anti-discrimination laws

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one anti-discrimination law that protects certain groups of people. Under this act, and other federal anti-discrimination laws (like the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act), a person may not be discriminated against based on certain characteristics:

• Age;
• Race;
• National Origin;
• Religious Beliefs;
• Gender ;
• Disability;
• Pregnancy;
• Veteran Status

There one of the items says "national origin". If an american is attacked or discriminated by his status as american, is he protected by anti discrimination laws because "national origin" is a protected class? Or if not why not?

Answer 1

The main difference distinguish Martinez's conviction from other flag burning convictions is that it wasn't his flag. If you were to steal and burn my American flag, you too could be prosecuted. There is a little issue of protected class, because he was convicted under the hate crime statute, not just plain arson. In Iowa the protected classes are:

race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability, or the person’s association with a person of a certain race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability

If you burned my Tall People's Club flag, that is not a protected class. If you burned my American flag because I am expressing my Americanness, that's a hate crime.

Answer 2

As explained, the sentence wasn't just for discrimination for burning the "Pride" flag of an LGBTQ club. It was for:

1. burning something that wasn't his property,
2. for burning it just outside a bar that he had threatened to burn down earlier, and
3. based on earlier convictions.

If you purchased a "Pride" flag and burnt it in a safe way and had no previous convictions, your punishment would be a lot less.

Now if someone burnt a US "Stars and Stripes" flag, would that be illegal discrimination? That depends. If you did that in Germany, where these flags are kind of rare, and if it was done to attack defenseless Americans living in Germany, probably yes (for example, burning a US flag outside a club in Germany that is known to be frequented by US expatriates, to make them afraid to go to that club). If it was done as a protest against US politics, no.

In the USA - where if I stole a random country flag, chances are >95% that it is a US flag - it's unlikely to be discrimination, especially since discrimination isn't just disliking something, it requires actual ability to damage the person.

But in principle, for example if you applied for a job somewhere in the USA and you were told "go away, we only hire Argentinians", that would be illegal discrimination based on your nationality and you would be protected.