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ACLU: Guardians of Liberty or 'Card-Carrying' Hypocrites? 9/2/2004 "The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty," its Web site boasts. "We work daily … to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country."1
Active in lawsuits, legislatures, the media and academia, the ACLU certainly is working to "defend rights." The inconsistency of its record, however, raises the question of just whose liberties they are working to preserve. An examination of the ACLU's involvement in and comments about individual rights reveals that it may not be working to defend "every person in this country." Becoming a "card-carrying member of the ACLU"2 may make you a member of the world's largest organization for hypocrites.
The Right to Live
According to the ACLU, "the death penalty is the greatest denial of civil liberties,"3 making the right to live the most fundamental civil liberty. Capital punishment is reserved for only the most heinous offenses, yet even the perpetrators of unspeakable acts should not lose this essential right, according to the ACLU. "Furthermore, we hold that the state should not arrogate unto itself the right to kill human beings-especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, or when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion."4
Nonetheless, when Florida courts placed in jeopardy innocent Theresa "Terri" Schiavo's right to live, the ACLU not only did not fight to preserve her life, but joined her husband's effort to end it with the help of the state.
In 1990, Terri suffered cardiac arrest. Though physically handicapped and unable to talk, Terri is not on artificial life support. She can move, laugh, cry, vocalize emotions, and is responsive to questions, instructions, and the presence of family and other visitors. Yet, Terri's husband insists that she is in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS), and filed suit to deny her food and water.
The ACLU of Florida is acting as co-counsel to Michael Schiavo. The executive director of the Florida Chapter of the ACLU criticized the efforts of Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature to overturn a judge's ruling that would have ended Terri's life.5
Worse yet, the ACLU claims to protect the disabled, saying "people with disabilities are still, far too often, treated as second-class citizens, shunned and segregated."6 In 2001, the organization worked to achieve the transfer of several mentally ill patients in Wisconsin's Supermax Prison, a facility reserved for the worst and most devious offenders, to a psychiatric facility.7
The ACLU is working to deny Terri a right they fight for on behalf of serial killers and mass murderers, despite 17 national disability groups supporting Terri's right to live. There's no doubt which side the ACLU would take if a convicted murderer with all of Terri's disabilities were sentenced to death.
Then there's the ACLU's zealous advocacy for abortion rights without limitation. No unborn child has ever been represented by the ACLU. Instead, its crusade against innocent unborn children is shamelessly titled, "Fighting Fetal Rights." It does so by attacking legislation such as The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, The Born Alive Infants Protection Act and bans on partial birth abortion."8
Marriage and Children
When a California Appeals Court in 2001 called into question the validity of same-sex, second-parent adoptions, the California branch of the ACLU warned that the decision could harm "thousands of children."11 When the Colorado Court of Appeals allowed the former lesbian partner of a woman to become the "psychological parent" of the daughter she had adopted from China, the ACLU proclaimed "it protects the interests of children."12
The ACLU ignores numerous studies that show that the best place for children is in a family with their mother and father, and, instead, advocates for homosexual marriage and adoption and legalization of polygamy. The ACLU of Utah announced July 16, 1999, that "it plans to back the [polygamist] group's challenge to Utah's bigamy law."13
The California Chapter of the ACLU showed no concern for harm to children when it opposed an abstinence-based sex education bill. Its opposition was based on the ludicrous claim that teaching heterosexual marriage in public schools violates the Establishment Clause:
It is our position that teaching that monogamous, heterosexual intercourse within marriage is a traditional American value is an unconstitutional establishment of a religious doctrine in public schools. There are various religions which hold contrary beliefs with respect to marriage and monogamy. We believe SB 2394 violates the First Amendment.14
Let the States Decide…or Not
Despite its strong emphasis on keeping marriage out of the federal arena, the ACLU fought passage of the Marriage Protection Act (MPA) by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 22, 2004. The MPA removes the federal court's jurisdiction to hear cases challenging the section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that protects states from being forced to recognize out-of-state marriages that violate the state's law or public policy. In opposing the MPA, the ACLU argues that removing federal court jurisdiction is improper. "Without the final voice of the Supreme Court and the supremacy of a uniform federal law, the ACLU noted, legal chaos could ensue."17 It is ironic that the ACLU was not concerned with "legal chaos" when it opposed the FMA, which would create a "uniform federal law" defining marriage.
Freedom of Speech
We share some common ground with the ACLU's response to such codes, which states, "That's the wrong response, well-meaning or not. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Speech codes adopted by government-financed state colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution."18
We do not agree, however, with characterizing them as "censorship." An organization with so many able lawyers ought to know the legal meaning of censorship,19 and stop using it to demonize every regulation on speech or pornography.
The ACLU always leads the attack against any regulation on pornography, even when it involves children. Its opposition to The Child Online Protection Act, is in behalf of "artists, sex educators, and Web publishers [who wish] to communicate with adults about sexuality."20
In a similar move, the ACLU threatened to sue a South Dakota library for removing a Planned Parenthood Web site that was geared toward teenagers. Though the site was sexually inappropriate for teens, the organization expressed concern about what "appears on the surface to be a case of censorship"21 and the harm that removing the Web site could do to children.
Public library officials make content-selection choices as a matter of course. No court has ever held that a person has a right to require a library to acquire a particular publication. To argue that a library must provide access to every Web site because it provides access to the Internet is groundless.
Wichita Falls, Texas, enacted an ordinance, known as the Altman Resolution, which allowed 300 library card holders to petition for relocating any book in the children's section of the public library to the adult section. The library staff initially relocated two books, Daddy's Roommate and Heather Has Two Mommies, into the adult section after receiving petitions from cardholders. A "volunteer cooperating attorney on behalf of the ACLU" filed suit in federal court claiming the ordinance was unconstitutional. Although 300 cardholders believed the books were age-inappropriate, the ACLU called moving the books "censorship."22
Compare that with threatening a public library with a lawsuit if it continues to label some books as "Christian." Emily Baker, the Olathe, Kansas library director, was looking for ways to make browsing easier for her patrons, many of whom enjoy Christian fiction books. But one person took issue with the labeling, and rather than confronting the librarian or her board, the complainant went directly to Dick Kurtenbach of the ACLU. The library board voted to end the labeling rather than face a lawsuit. "'(The complainant) felt that it was up to her to decide whether or not a book that she wanted to check out was religious in nature and it was not up to the librarian to make that decision,' Kurtenbach said." He claimed "the labels, which contained a cross and the word 'Christian,' could be grounds for a lawsuit."23
In the Texas library, the ACLU argued that it was up to the librarians and not the patrons, to decide whether books are appropriate for children, but in Kansas, it's the decision of the patrons and not the librarian to decide if a book is Christian fiction.
Not only has the ACLU argued for the rights of children to access pornography, they are defending the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in a lawsuit. NAMBLA actively promotes sex between grown men and boys, providing literature and a Web site on the subject.
Two men in possession of NAMBLA material lured a ten-year-old boy into their car, overcame his resistance by choking him to death with an oil-soaked rag, molested his dead body, and dumped him in a cement-filled container into a river in Maine.24 When the boy's parents sued NAMBLA for complicity in their son's death, the ACLU stepped in to defend NAMBLA, claiming "those who do wrong are responsible for what they do; those who speak about it are not."25
Children and Privacy
The ACLU Web site advises minors how to obtain birth control supplies and a pregnancy test without telling their parents:
What you do or don't do with your body is your personal business. If you need to have a pregnancy test, or if you're pregnant, you should go to the family planning clinic nearest you. Your local ACLU can help you find one. Some schools provide birth control supplies; find out if yours does. If you go to the doctor, find out what the doctor's policy is on telling your parents.27 [Emphasis in original.]
Yet, when it suits its agenda, the ACLU has spoken against what it perceives to be substantial interference "with the right of families to make lifestyle choices." When the state of Virginia passed a law requiring parents to accompany their children to teen-nudist camps, the Virginia ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the state. Kent Willis, Virginia ACLU executive director, claimed the law "substantially interfered with the right of families to make lifestyle choices."28 Federal Judge Richard L. Williams, on July 15, ruled that the nudist colony cannot hold its annual summer camp for teenagers without parental supervision. "The law merely imposes a restriction that a parent or a legal guardian be present," Williams said. "People who care about their children or grandchildren will make the adjustment to their schedules so their kids can go."29
Contrast this with the ACLU's Policy 4(g): "The ACLU views the use of children in the production of visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct as a violation of children's rights when such use is highly likely to cause: a) substantial physical harm; or b) substantial and continuing emotional or psychological harm."30 First, when does sexual abuse or exploitation not cause substantial harm to children? Second, notice that the policy is limited to the production of child porn. That's because the ACLU believes that once the photographs are made, they should be protected by the First Amendment. Where is the concern for a child's right of privacy? Apparently, privacy only protects kids from their parents but not perverts.
Students' Rights
Although CWA takes no position on school vouchers, consistency would seem to dictate that the ACLU would support voucher programs, which would allow students to get out of the public schools, "where their constitutional rights are being violated." The organization, however, has criticized the Bush administration's efforts to establish voucher programs that would assist low-income parents to transfer their children into a good private or public school.33
When the District of Columbia, known for having the worst school system in the nation, began its voucher program, Terri Schroeder, an ACLU Legislative Analyst, accused Congress of failing "to provide meaningful assistance to help schoolchildren in the nation's capital."34 Some inner-city minorities have accused the ACLU of trying to preserve the segregation of the wealthy and poor that exists between private and public schools.35
By opposing voucher programs, the ACLU is at odds with research showing that competition among schools cultivated by vouchers tends to improve performance across the board, particularly in inner-city schools.36 It is also at odds with its own claim that it wants to "establish the right to educational equity for poor children and children of color."37
So is the ACLU concerned about "meaningful assistance to help schoolchildren" or is it about helping its liberal-left allies at the National Education Association?
Religion in Public Schools
The ACLU argues that 12-year-olds are mature enough to decide on their own whether to have an abortion, but they're too impressionable to decide whether they want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. For now, school officials may continue to lead children who want to say the Pledge.
In its crusade for the "separation of church and state," a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution, the ACLU filed suit in June 2004 to prohibit a Kansas City school district from distributing Gideon Bibles to students.39 Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, stated, "The role of the public school is to be neutral on matters of religion." In a settlement agreement, the school district agreed not to distribute the Bibles or allow nonstudents to distribute Bibles on school premises.
Since 2002, a California public school has required seventh graders to participate in a course teaching the tenets of Islam. The children must adopt a Muslim name, memorize Islamic phrases and proverbs, and learn the prayers to Allah. One outraged parent asked, "Can you imagine the barrage of lawsuits and problems we would have from the ACLU if Christianity were taught in the public schools? … This is hypocrisy."40 Despite national media attention, the ACLU has yet to challenge the school's curriculum.41
But when Kathleen Madigan, principal of Berkley Gardens Elementary School in Denver, Colorado, wanted to sue Kenneth Roberts, a fifth grade teacher, the ACLU came to Madigan's aid. Why? "Roberts kept a Bible on his desk, and read it during his students' silent reading period. Madigan curtly told Roberts that she expected him to keep the Bible off his desk between 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m."42 A court ruled that the location of the Bible was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
The ACLU of Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Lee County School District from teaching an "unconstitutional" Bible History course that uses the Bible as though it is a history textbook.43 To the ACLU, Bibles and Bible history courses are not constitutional but, apparently, indoctrinating children with Islam is.
Public School Materials and Speakers
In June 2004, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) threatened the Windsor Locks School District with a lawsuit if the school allowed a pastor to speak about homosexuality to the students, even though a pro-homosexual group called "Stonewall Speakers" was allowed to do so. Annette Lamoreaux, a legal director with the CCLU, said that the pastor's type of presentation is best given at a church, and if presented during the school day, it would be a violation of the gay student's right to equal protection. The school district will continue to exclude the pastor.45 So much for viewpoint neutrality and equal protection.
Religious Expression in the Public Square
The ACLU, however, did not follow its "same rights" argument in an April 2004 case concerning the Boy Scouts' use of a public park in San Diego. Even though the city and Boy Scouts had a lease agreement that allowed the Scouts to use the park, the ACLU successfully argued that the city violated "the separation of church and state." The ACLU convinced the city that the Scouts are a "self-described religious organization that discriminates on the basis of religious belief and sexual orientation." As a result, the city excluded the Scouts from the public park.47 How is it that a fundamental constitutional right such as religion can be trumped by sexual orientation, which is not a fundamental right?
Christian Christmas decorations provided the ACLU with another target for limiting religion in the public square. Through the ACLU's unwavering attacks, the court deemed that a display of a crèche was unconstitutional unless other items, including Christmas trees, menorahs, and the star and crescent accompanied it.48
Government and Religion
In 1999, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU argued that New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani "flagrantly violated" the First Amendment by seeking to "punish" the publicly-funded Brooklyn Museum of Art because of his threats to cut off funding over a controversial exhibit of a painting, which depicts a black Virgin Mary and incorporates elephant dung.49
In 2000, the ACLU of Southern California succeeded in persuading the National Park Service to respect religious diversity and the First Amendment by removing a Christian cross from the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County.50
The Canadian Civil Liberties Union coerced the Royal Canadian Mint to change its "Twelve Days of Christmas" program to "Twelve Days of Giving." In response to this removal of the Christian reference, a mother observed that no other religion would tolerate this attack: "We're stampeding so hard to embrace every other religious holiday that we're trampling on our own traditions. God forbid if we asked Muslims to change Ramadan."51
On November 24, 1999, the ACLU of Southern California "claimed victory today after the Val Verde Unified School District dropped plans to post copies of the Ten Commandments on the walls of school offices."52
However, despite the media attention, the ACLU took no action when a public high school in Hawaii permitted students to place a 10-foot sculpture of a Hawaiian god on high school grounds.53
Another contradiction exists in the ACLU's treatment of city proclamations. In 1999, the ACLU argued that a Bible Week proclamation by the mayor of Gilbert, Arizona, violated the Establishment Clause.54 Conversely, when the mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, declared "Earth-based Religions Awareness Week," the ACLU was silent.55
Freedom of Association and Free Exercise of Religion
The Salvation Army left San Francisco because the Army's religious beliefs, which preclude them from providing domestic-partner benefits to employees, conflicted with the city's demands. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court on February 24, 2004, charging the Salvation Army with religious discrimination against employees in its government-funded social services in New York City and on Long Island.56 The Army is currently trying to resolve disputes with many cities that are demanding the Army comply with civil-rights ordinances that include sexual orientation as a protected class.
Conclusion
William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, writes, "The ACLU's reliance on a judicially active court explains why it greets Supreme Court nominees with the utmost seriousness. … Just two years before the ACLU reversed its official policy of nonpartisanship, Ira Glasser, ACLU staff member, stated that 'if we get involved in partisan politics to the extent of supporting or opposing a particular candidate or nominee, then everything we say later about what that person does becomes suspect.' Evidently, the defeat of Bork was worth the risk."57
In ACLU The Devil's Advocate, F. LaGard Smith, author and law professor, quotes the ACLU's self-description as "the nation's foremost advocate of individual rights - litigating, legislating, and educating the public on a broad array of issues affecting individual freedom in the United States." Smith agrees and adds, "Yet, the ACLU may also be described fairly as the legal arm of the liberal-Left, supporting any number of causes that seem to debase the noble ideals of civil libertarianism. Which of these pictures is more accurate?" Smith concludes that the ACLU has "exchanged its role as defender of the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights for an activist expansion of civil liberties which reach beyond specifically articulated freedoms. … [T]he liberal left's inexorable march toward achieving unrestrained individualism. … Personal autonomy … for licentious behavior."58
If the ACLU doesn't represent your vision of "liberty," the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, please consider supporting those who do.
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