Can Someone Tell Me What the Problem is?

Ok. So, apparently this has been causing some controversy. If you don't immediately recognize it, it's the Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish.

My biggest complaint is that it's a shitty version of the song. If i had heard this before reading that article, though, it wouldn't have even ocurred to me that people might be pissed about it. So, my question is: why the fuck are people pissed about it?

Ultimately, i think, it comes down to people being pissed that the song, the American National Anthem, is being sung in an un-American language. I think, in this way, it's offensive to some people in the same way flag burning is: you're sullying, these people argue, America by sullying the symbol.

That's eminently stupid for a few reasons:

1. The whole point of a free society is that you can sully something. In a totalitarian regime, you might not be allowed to openly question the government. You might not even be allowed to damage or destroy a symbol of the government. Here in America, however, we have the First Amendment, we have freedom. People are right in asserting that the Star-Spangled Banner is a symbol. And what does it symbolize other than the ideals that America was founded on? Chief amongst those ideals, of course, is freedom. Destroying the symbol destroys the symbol but, ironically, it is also a reflection of the strength and meaning of what is being symbolized. Removing the freedom to destroy the symbol preserves the symbol, but at the expense of what is being symbolized, which does much greater damage to the whole thing. Such are the consequences of living in a free society: people can do things you might not like, like redo the Star-Spangled Banner or be hippies.
2. There are a lot of people (myself included) who both are American and speak Spanish. Those of you who know me know that i think the concept of diversity is inherently racist, but that's not what i'm talking about. I'm thinking, actually, of a commercial that was on TV some time after the September 11th attacks. It featured all different sorts of people saying the phrase "I am an American." I thought it was a great commercial. Anyway, America's always had a reputation as a melting pot, so what's the big deal if a cultural or linguistic group (and, in this case, one of the biggest minority groups in the country) adapts the National Anthem to their language?
3. "A rose by any other name . . . " The song might be in Spanish, but they're still singing about our flag and our country ("our" here includes the singers: speaking Spanish doesn't dimish their standing as Americans). This is related to the last point: the singers of the song didn't appropriate the melody and then change the words to refer to Mexico or Puerto Rico. Instead, they simply translated a song that talks reverently about America and our flag into a different language. Here are the lyrics:
   

   Amanece, lo veis?, a la luz de la aurora?
   lo que tanto aclamamos la noche caer?
   sus estrellas sus franjas
   flotaban ayer en el fiero combate
   en señal de victoria,
   fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada.
   Por la noche decían:
   "Se va defendiendo!"
   Oh decid! Despliega aún
   Voz a su hermosura estrellada,
   sobre tierra de libres,
   la bandera sagrada?
   Sus estrellas, sus franjas,
   la libertad, somos iguales.
   Somos hermanos, en nuestro himno.
   En el fiero combate en señal de victoria,
   Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada.
   Mi gente sigue luchando.
   Ya es tiempo de romper las cadenas.
   Por la noche decían: "!Se va defendiendo!"
   Oh decid! Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada sobre
   tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?
   

   
   The final lines, translated back to English (shades of superkaratemonkeydeathcar here) say: "Does it still display it's starry beauty over the land of the free, the sacred flag?" Have we become so racist or Ameri-centric that we refuse to allow people to sing the praises of our country in a language other than English? It's a sad state of affairs indeed if that's where we sit.
4. The Star-Spangled Banner's been fucked with before. I'm more troubled by allowing Rosanne to sing it than i am by it's being sung in Spanish. And let's not forget that Jimi Hendix's version was controversial in it's time, too. Both of those versions, and a few others, are discussed at the webpage Star-Mangled Banner.

So, anyway, i don't see any reason for reasonable people to be pissed at "Nuestro Himno" (that's what the Spanish version is called, by the way, and it means "Our Anthem"). But, then, i should know by now that not everyone's reasonable . . .