The ACRU Blog

On Wednesday, March 18, 2009, from 3:00-6:00pm ET, John Armor will be on "Let's Talk Frank" with Lee and Terry Frank. They will talk about FreedomtoListen.org, SaveRadioFreeAmerica.org and the ACLU Outrages.

You can listen in if you are in Eastern Tennessee, tune in on 850 WKVL out of Knoxville, 1140 WLOD in Loudon, 1400 WGAP in Maryville and 1290 WATO in Oak Ridge. You can also listen live online.

On Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 4:20pm ET, ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara will talk to Sandy Rios on 1160AM WYLL out of Chicago, IL. They will talk about the Durbin Amendment and FreedomtoListen.org. Tune in if you are in the Chicago area or listen live online.

On Thursday, January 8, 2009, ACRU Senior Fellow Horace Cooper will be on "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" at 7:10am ET. He will be discussing the Muslim T-Shirt Settlement. You can listen on any of the nationwide affiliates or online.

Then at 8:35am ET Horace will talk to Mornings with Keith and Gail at 8:35am ET. The show is on Fox News Radio 600AM KCOL out of Wellington, CO. Horace will be discussing the Burris Appointment. You can listen live online.

On Thursday, July 10 at 10:20am ET, John Armor will be on "The Morning Magazine" on KRMS 1150AM out of Osage Beach, MO. He will be talking about the ACLU and its upcoming campaigns. You can listen live here.

On May 6th at 8:00pm ET, Peter Ferrara will be on The Mike Porcaro Show on KENI out of Anchorage, Alaska. He will be talking about how the ACLU has been attacking Christianity by censoring legislative prayers.

UPDATE: On May 8th at 10:20am ET, Peter will be on The Right Balance with Greg Allen. He will again be talking about the ACLU attacking Christianity. You can find your local station here

On Wednesday, April 30 at 2:15pm ET, Ken Blackwell will be on Janet Parshall's America talking about a recent ACLU Outrage: Judges censoring prayer. You can find your local station by going here.

John Armor will be interviewed a couple times in the coming days to talk about the latest ACLU Outrage, the assault on "In God We Trust."

On Saturday, April 26, John will be on The Trevor Carey Show on 710AM KNUS out of Denver, CO. He will be on at 8:30pm ET. You can listen online here.

Then on Weds, April 30, John will be talking to Cindy Barnett on the American Family Radio Network. He will be on at 11:00am ET. Click here to find your local station and click here to listen online.

Today, April 22, at 3:00pm ET, John Armor will be on the "Chuck Baker Show" on KKKK-AM in Longmont, CO. He will be discussing the latest ACLU Outrage, In God We Trust. Tune in if you are in the Longmont area.

John Armor is going to talk to Pat Snyder on 550 WSAU-AM out of Wausau, WI on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 9:20am. He will be talking about on of the recent ACLU Outrages, Teacher Testing in MA Biased Towards Incompetence.

On Friday, April 4th, both John Armor and Peter Ferrara will be on the radio.

At 9:06am ET, John Armor will be on with Craig Hammond on WHIS 1440AM and WTZE 1470AM out of Bluefield, WV. He will talking about the Droopy Drawers Bill.

Then, at 1:30pm, Peter will be on the "Rick Jensen Show" on 1150AM WDEL out of Wilmington, DE. He will be talking about the ACLU's defense of sex offenders and whatever else might come up. Listen live online by clicking here.

John Armor was quoted on March 20th on the latest ACLU Outrage: ACLU Wants the US to Lose the War on Terrorism on American Family Association's OneNewsNow.com.

Says John:

"They do want to aid these guys," he exclaims. "If you look at it politically, not legally, the ACLU wants the United States to lose in the war on terror because it feels that governments which are socialistic are preferred to what we have -- and those are the kind of people we're up against," he adds. "Of course, the fact that they're murderous dictators seems to escape the interest of the ACLU, so they're rooting for the other side to win and trying to help them."

Check out this ACLU Outrage or any of the others by going here.

John Armor will be talking to Mike McConnell on 700 WLW-AM on Monday, March 17th at 10:00am. He will be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage: The ACLU Gets "Behind" Civil Liberties. You can listen online here or if you are an XM subscriber, you can also tune into Channel 173.

This week is a busy radio week for the ACRU.

On Tuesday, March 11, John Armor will be talking to Greg Allen on "The Right Balance" at 10:20am EDT. He will be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage: ACLU defends: Exhibitionist by Night, Teacher by Day. You can listen online here.

On Wednesday, March 12, John will be talking to Pat Snyder on 550 WSAU-AM in Wausau, WI at 10:05am EDT. He will again be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage: ACLU defends: Exhibitionist by Night, Teacher by Day. You can listen online here.

On Thursday March 13, Hans Zeiger will be talking to Dr. Judy Heist on the "Let Freedom Ring Show" out of Atlanta, GA. He will be talking Lambda Legal and the Boy Scouts at 1:15pm.

On Friday, March 14, will be on the "Stan Milam Show" on 1230 WCLO-AM in Janesville, WI at 11:30am EDT. He will again be talking about the attack on the Boy Scouts. You can listen online here (a free signup is required).

Also on Friday, Hans will be on the "Tri State Viewpoint" with Jean Dean on WRVC-AM in Huntington, WV. He will be on at 12:35pm EDT and will be talking about the attack on the Boy Scouts.

More interviews will be posted as they come in.

Both Hans Zieger and John Armor will be on the radio March 4.

At 9:40am EST, Hans will be on with Jay Kersting on KLIK 1240AM. He will be talking about the attack on the Boy Scouts. You can listen live here.

Then at 11:33am EST, John will be talking to Greg Allen, on his show, "The Right Balance." He will be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage, ACLU argues over church tax exemption. You can find your local affiliate here or listen online here.

Over the next week, the ACRU is going to be on the radio several times talking about the issues.

Hans Zeiger will be talking about the attack by the left on the Boy Scouts of America. First he will be on today, the 28th at 7:00pm EST with Mike Bastinelli and "The Afternoon Update" on KIT-AM in Yakima, WA.

Then on February 29th, Hans will be on "The Guetzloe Report" on WAMT 1190AM in Orlando, FL. He will be on at 11:00am EST and you can listen live here.

Hans will also be on KKKK in Longmont, CO and the "Chuck Baker Show." He will be on at 3:00pm EST.

Finally, on Sat, March 1 at 9:00pm, Hans will be on "The Trevor Carey Show" on KNUS 710 in Denver, CO. You can listen to Hans live here.

Also on the 29th, John Armor will be on talking about the latest ACLU Outrage, the ACLU having blood on their hands.

First, at 8:35am EST, John will be on with "Sean and Casey" on WCBM 680AM in Baltimore, MD. You can listen live here.

Then at 4:00pm EST, John will be on "The Chuck Baker Show" on KKKK in Longmont, CO.

On Saturday, March 1, John will on with Niel Young and "The Advocates" on WEZS-AM in Lanconia, NH. You can here him at 9:10am EST.

Horace Cooper will also be on next week. He will be on the "Zeb on the Ranch" show with Zeb Bartley on Wednesday, March 5 at 8:06am EST. He will be talking about the ACLU and FISA.

More updates as they come in.

On Friday Feb 29th, John Armor and Ken Blackwell will be on the air.

At 12:30pm EST, John Armor will be talking to Bill Darwin on WRTC AM 1340 in Elkhart, IN. He will be talking about Immigration, Drivers Licenses or any other subject that comes up. You can listen live here.

At 5:00pm EST, Ken Blackwell will be on the Michael Medved Show. He will be talking about Second Amendment issues. You can click here to find out what station the show is on in your area.

At 7:00pm EST, Ken Blackwell will be talking to Terry Gilberg, who will be filling in on The J.D. Hayworth Show. Ken will be talking about Congress' failure to pass the Protect American Act. You can here him in Phoenix, AZ on KFYI 550AM or online by clicking here.

John Armor will be on the radio in Jacksonville, FL on Friday, Feb. 15 from 11:05-11:20am. He will be talking Ed Banker on Intelligent Radio. He will be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage: the Sex display on at William and Mary.

John Armor will be talking about the latest ACLU, the Sex workers show on the William and Mary campus. He will be on with Chuck Baker on KKKK-AM in Longmont, CO on February 6, at 4:00pm EST.

UPDATE: John's interview has been cancelled. Hopefully John will be on again soon.

John Armor will be on the air a couple times over the next few days to talk about the latest ACLU outrage.

On January 31st, listen to John on The Morning Show with Craig Anderson on KWEL-AM, Midland Texas. He will be on at 8:35am EST. Listen live here.

Also, on February 2nd, John with be on The Advocate with Niel Young on WEZS-AM 1350, Lanconia, NH. He will be on either at 9:10am EST or 9:30am EST for about 30 minutes.

John Armor will be discussing the latest ACLU Outrage, The ACLU siding with illegal immigrants, with Elaine Lawson and The PartyLine on WILO/WSHW in Frankfort, KY. He will be on from 8:30-9:30am EST January 18.

Al Knight wrote this column, which appeared in the Denver Post a couple days ago. He talks about how the Philadelphia City Council is forcing the Cradle of Liberty Council out of its headquarters. In the article he also mentions the ACRU and the fine work we are doing.

Knight sums up the entire problem with the Boy Scouts in Philadelphia in one sentence:

The youth of Philadelphia need the Boy Scouts as much as ever, but the City Council is too cowardly to stand up to the unreasonable and vindictive demands of special interest groups.

Please, let the Philadelphia City Council know what you think about this. Contact information for the members of the Council can be found here.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/11/21/160103.php

Written by John Bambenek
Published November 21, 2007
Part of The Culture Wars

See also:
The Politics of Reality
Out In The Middle of Nowhere: The U.S. Border Patrol
First Woman, First Black, First Latino, or First Honest President?

Much like the Christmas shopping season, the ACLU's War on Christmas begins earlier and earlier every year. This year in Fort Collins, Colorado, the city council decided to revise their policies to honor appropriately the holiday that almost ninety percent of America celebrates as Christmas. A task force was drawn up, given their task, and put to work.

Like most task forces set up by governing bodies, the result is only as good as the people you put in charge. In this case, the head of the ACLU in Fort Collins was tasked with running the committee. The result was obviously predictable.

The task force recommended no Christmas lights, no recognition of Christmas, no use of the colors red and green, no Christmas trees, and to otherwise squelch anything even remotely connected to Christmas. Instead, they suggested decorations of icicles and prominent use of the color brown. In short, they suggested returning Christmas to its millennia old pagan roots.

At the city council meeting to vote on the proposal, hundreds of people showed up to voice their concern (instead of the 10-15 people who usually show up) and the proposal was shot down 6-1. The lone dissenting voice protested saying that residents would feel left out and alienated by the city recognizing that the overwhelming majority of citizens are celebrating Christmas.

It's an interesting argument. Tolerance requires that people practice their faith in such a way that never leaves anyone out. Even if you took this argument at face value; that would effectively mean that no one could practice religion because the moment you identify with a group, you tacitly isolate those who are not part of that group. The idea that the First Amendment, designed to protect citizens from government, requires a destruction of all uniqueness is odd indeed.

However, it isn't a matter of simply suppressing religion from public life. These calls simply do not exist (even in the Fort Collins matter) when the religion in question is Judaism or Islam. The ACLU's goal, based on their track record, appears to be to prevent the public proclamation of Christianity in the name of the First Amendment. The bastardization of the Establishment Clause far beyond its intended meaning to require the government to enforce secular humanism on the people is to get the entire Bill of Rights backwards.

Horace Cooper, senior fellow with the American Civil Rights Union stated that it is inappropriate for "the government to pick and choose with faiths it will support and denigrate." The Establishment Clause, followed immediately by the Free Expression Clause, does not allow the suppression of a religion in the name of "diversity." In this case, the champions of diversity aren't really interested in what they preach; they simply want to redirect hate and intolerance to their desired targets. It's using the government to play the game of power politics. However, in this case -- because of the efforts of the ACRU -- the effort failed.

The ACLU generally uses intimidation to achieve victories that even the courts won't provide. By intimidating local officials with the threat of the ACLU, many simply cave and give the ACLU what they want. It is telling indeed that the Fort Collins ACLU head was in charge of this task force. In this case, it was the vigorous opposition of the local people combined with the ACRU that prevented the suppression of free speech and expression of an overwhelming majority of the community.

This intimidation has led to groups being formed to counteract the far-reaching agenda of the ACLU to build and impose a societal view outside the framework of the democratic process. Examples include the ACRU, which also has a courtwatch project to monitor Bush's judicial nominations, and other groups like the Thomas More Law Center and the American Center for Law and Justice.

One fact that should give everyone pause is that these debates about society now take place in courtrooms, argued by lawyers and decided by unelected judges. While there is a degree of balance with these groups, the wholesale removal of large social questions from the people has done much to not only undermine the notion of American self-government, but also call into question whether this country is really a republic anymore.

While this latest battle in the War on Christmas has subsided, the removal of the battle from the people to lawyers and courtrooms, and the fact that free expression of Christianity is under fire by the largest "civil rights" group in the country, should make us all think. This year, we can at least be thankful those who celebrate Christmas can still do so publicly as those who celebrate Ramadan or Hanukkah can do. Time will tell if the ACLU will succeed in telling us which religions and holidays we're allowed to recognize.

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John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

Read article in The New York Sun, here.

The bulbs are dim and growing dimmer in Fort Collins, Colorado where recommendations from a city appointed task force threaten to outlaw from the public square everything associated with Christmas. No more colored lights or God fobid - a wreath with a bow! Snowflakes, white lights and unadorned penguins will be the only outside decorations permitted if the silly recommendations are approved at the City Council's next meeting on November 20. The ACLU was of course represented on the task force, along with fourteen other Ft. Collinians with obviously too much time on their hands. To view the product of this extraordinary effort to remove Christmas from our culture go to www.fcgov.com/holidaydisplay.

The facts for this story, but not the legal conclusions, come from a story
on the KOTV website, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 October. From the story,
it is not clear whether the ACLU was directly involved in this case. But
from other litigation, it is clear the ACLU would seek to have this new
Oklahoma law struck down in court.

Oklahoma passed a law with two types of provisions against illegal aliens in
the state. It will penalize businesses which hire illegal aliens, with
denials of licenses to operate for repeat offenses. It will also penalize
owners of rental property who knowingly rent to illegal aliens.

Two tries before a federal court in Oklahoma produced a ruling by U.S.
District Judge James H. Payne that "the plaintiffs had failed to produce
enough evidence" to entitle them to a preliminary injunction against the new
law. Note that this is the exact opposite result from the federal court
decisions concerning Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Framers Branch, Texas.

In both those city cases, the respective federal courts ruled that the
cities did not have the constitutional power to act in this area, and struck
the laws down. Had the federal court in Oklahoma taken the same approach,
it would have struck down the new state law as facially invalid. In all
three instances, the ordinances and the state law used definitions in
federal law of who was, or was not, an illegal alien. So, the conclusions
by unelected federal judges about what elected officials could do, should
have been the same.

As the article notes, the Oklahoma statute "received bipartisan support from
state lawmakers who expressed frustration with Congress' inability to pass
comprehensive immigration reform." Pat Fennel, director of the Latino
Community Development Agency in Oklahoma City, said, "So many Latinos have
already left Oklahoma and many plan to do so, which is precisely what Randy
Terrill [sponsor of the legislation] wanted -- cleanse the state."

The gist of this article is that all Hispanics, legal and illegal, will be
harmed by this law. It does not explain how legal aliens, who have an
established right to be in the United States, and may be working toward full
citizenship, would be affected by the new law.

The article claims that thousands of legals and illegals are leaving
Oklahoma. The reporter did not bother to research the prior history of
efforts to deal with illegal immigration. The last President to work
actively in this area was Dwight Eisenhower. He appointed a retired general
to act in this area. He, in turn, started cracking down on employers who
hired illegal aliens, and deporting the aliens themselves. But many more
tens of thousands of aliens "self-deported" and returned to Mexico in
response to this change of attitudes, than were directly affected by either
the actions against employers or the individual deportations together.

In short, Oklahoma has just provided to the Congress and the other states an
example of a law that is so clear and so effective that it is
self-enforcing. People get the word of the provisions of the law, and they
act. In this case, however, they are self-deporting to other states with
lax laws, rather than back to Mexico.

The federal judge in this case has also provided (for now, this was the
denial of a preliminary injunction) an example to judges across the country.
It is this: it is the business of elected representatives to act for the
welfare of the citizens in their cities or states. It is not the business
of unelected judges to second guess those decisions of the legislators.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=138946

The facts for this comment, but not the legal conclusions, come from an
article carried on the CBS website on 1 November. It is unclear whether the
ACLU was involved in defending the Westboro Baptist Church in this case, but
it is clear from other cases that the ACLU defends the most reprehensible
"speech" like that present here.

A federal jury in Baltimore awarded a total of $10.9 million to Albert
Snyder, father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who was killed in Iraq,
against the apparent Church and three of its leaders who demonstrated at his
son's funeral. The defendants carried signs that said, among other things,
"Thank God for dead soldiers," and "God hates fags."

Twenty-two states have passed laws seeking to curtail the activities of this
so-called Church and its members. The Church was founded by Fred Phelps.
His two daughters, Phelps-Roper and Rebekah Phelps-Davis, are active in the
Church and were also found liable. One of them is a lawyer and was active
in the defense of the case.

Fred Phelps said, after the verdict, ""Oh, it will take about five minutes
to get that thing reversed."

Speaking as a three-decade First Amendment practitioner in the Supreme
Court, this will be a difficult verdict to uphold on appeal. "Freedom of
religion" is a broad right, but it is not absolute, as shown by cases on
medical treatment of children over their parents' religious objections. ""Freedom
of speech" is also a broad right, but it is also not absolute, as shown by
cases concluding "there is no right to cry fire in a crowded theater."

Because of interviews I have seen with members of this so-called Church, I
believe this verdict will be upheld. They have stated in public their
intent to hurt other people by the demonstrations they hold, and the
statements they present on their posters at these funerals. And, in order
to appeal, they should be required to post bond. If they do not post bond,
their church building, vehicles and personal property will be taken away,
and the Westboro Baptist Church will disappear.

Like the child pornography case that was argued this week in the Supreme
Court, there are certain cases whose content are so vile that they give a
bad name both to the concept of free speech, and to the lawyers who defend
such cases. The Westboro Baptist Church case goes further, and gives a bad
name to freedom of religion, as well.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/01/ap/national/main3439663.shtml

The facts for this comment, but not the legal conclusions, come mostly from an article published in the Raleigh News & Observer on 27 October. This story is related to the positions of the ACLU because, contrary to its stated mission, the ACLU favors maximum freedom of the press for those media who favor the political views as them.

This editorial in the Raleigh News & Observer is entitled, "Above and Beyond." It tells in plain but powerful words the story of Lt. Michael Murphy, a Navy Seal, who was part of a four-man team sent on a dangerous mission, deep into enemy controlled territory in Afghanistan, on 27 June, 2005.

His team was discovered, and ambushed. Lt. Murphy was the leader of this team, when they came under attack by about 50 of the enemy. The only chance of survival was to communicate with their base. Lt. Murphy went into an exposed position to make a satellite connection. Although shot in the chest, he completed that call. Three of his unit survived, but one was saved.

This week, President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor to Lt. Murphy, handing that medal to his family, at the White House. Lt. Murphy was from Patchogue, N.Y., in the backyard of the New York Times. Yet the Times did not see fit to feature this extraordinary award to him and his family, on its front page.

To give readers an idea of how rare and important this award is, there are only about 109 living holders of this Medal. And whenever any holder of this Medal appears in public wearing it, that person is entitled to be saluted by any other soldier including a five-star general, regardless of the rank of the Medal holder.

It wasn't just the print media who ignored this story of great courage, dedication, and sacrifice. The national broadcast networks also did not feature this story. The only network which featured the story in prime time was Fox, on cable. And, of course, the story of the slighting of Lt. Murphy's Medal of Honor was widely discussed on talk radio, across the nation.

In the meantime, journalists with this bent, and their political allies in the outside world, are promoting a new edition of the Fairness Doctrine. Is it for the purpose of increasing coverage in the mainstream media? No, it is to cut down the coverage in the radio media, the same people who took time to cover and honor the award to Lt. Murphy.

Does all this represent a failure of the First Amendment? Directly, no. But indirectly, yes.

Media operate in what Thomas Jefferson called "the marketplace of ideas." When the First Amendment was written and ratified, the media consisted of hundreds of small and independent newspapers, originally only four pages each. They lived or died often and easily, depending on their success or failure in the marketplace. And that, in turn, depended on their ability to attract advertisers and to satisfy the interests of their readership.

Though we now have many forms of media, the bulk of them electronic, the principles of success remain the same - advertising and attracting readers / listeners / viewers. In theory, those parts of the media who fail to serve their audience should wither and die. Those that do serve their audiences should grow and prosper. That's what Jefferson meant by "the marketplace of ideas."

To choose two examples not entirely at random, the New York Times and CBS, who were both derelict on this particular story, have been bleeding financially for a long time. Both are steadily losing audience share to other media who do better than they do in serving the audience. But neither has changed direction. And both continue down their failed paths.

This is an indirect failure of the First Amendment. When media become large institutions, with a bureaucracy committed to certain political directions, they can insulate themselves (for a time) from the consequences of their own bad journalistic decisions. Evidence shows that insulation from reality can last at least a generation. But it also shows that such ostrich-like behavior cannot last forever.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/story/747227.html

The facts for this comment, but not its legal conclusions, come from an article in the New York Post on October 24th.

This story in the Post speculates that Governor Spitzer's plan to force the issue of drivers' licenses for illegal aliens will cause political harm to Democrats. The paper reports senior Democrat officials as predicting that the Governor's action will cause "a mass exodus" from the Democrats in state and local races.

That may be true, but there are stronger and more basic reasons for opposing the Governor's plan, opposition which today includes a law suit filed by an upstate County Clerk, who claims that state law forbids him from issuing a driver's license to anyone who is not a legitimate resident of New York. Therefore, the Clerk argues, the Governor's executive order is itself illegal, and should be struck down by the court.

The Governor argued that this would "bring the immigrants in from the shadows," and "improve public safety by making these drivers legal." This proposal may well attract more illegal aliens to New York State - like the sanctuary cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and ones as far from the border as New Haven, and Milwaukee, have done for cities. But even if the number of illegals does not go up, here is the problem as shown in the American press:

Combining deaths on the highways and deaths in crimes, illegal aliens are killing more Americans per year than all the armed enemies that American soldiers face in all the hot spots in the world. Let me repeat that, more American men, women and children are being killed on the highways and in crimes by illegal aliens inside the US, than all military deaths during the same time.

Governor Spitzer's plan apparently violates New York law. It also violates the provisions of federal law on drivers' licenses to be used for federal ID purposes, such as boarding planes or getting passports. (The federal law doesn't kick in for a year, but Spitzer is obviously going in the wrong direction.)

But most importantly, Spitzer's plan will lead directly to deaths of legitimate residents of New York. And it will be the public backlash from those deaths which will lead to the "exodus from Democrats" that this article predicts.

Polls reported as this is being written, state that 70% of New Yorkers oppose the Governor's plan. There is even speculation that this issue will affect the presidential race concerning Senator Clinton and Mayor Giuliani. It is particularly troublesome for Senator Clinton, since she must choose between breaking with the Democratic Governor of her home state, or handing her opponents, including Mayor Giuliani a clear and significant issue.

Go here for this story on the Net:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10222007/news/regionalnews/spitzer_steering_us_toward_a_c.htm

The facts for this comment, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article published in the Houston Chronicle on 9 October.

The subtitle of this article correctly states the trend that is steadily growing. "Federal inaction means more than ever, nation's law agencies take issue into own hands." The public will is that illegal aliens are committing crimes, killing people in auto accidents, overwhelming local schools and hospitals with unpaid services. The public will is that effective steps to stop, and reverse, illegal immigration are required. The result is that inadequate action at the federal level is forcing some states and localities to act on their own.

The article recites that 23 county and state agencies have received training this year on working with immigration authorities to arrest and process illegal immigrants for deportation. This is "more than five times the number" who sought such training under an existing federal law, last year. Such training is done only when the local government takes the initiative and requests it.

The total impact of this program is significant and growing. The article notes that since the program began in 2002, "597 local officers who received training have made 26,000 arrests."

The article refers to the "void of immigration reform in Washington, D.C." that has caused eight states to pass a dozen laws on the subject, and a total of "182 immigration-related bills" in 43 states. The latter apparently include a Texas law requiring notification of immigration authorities whenever a non-citizen is convicted of family violence charges.

The article cites two critics of such policies. A professor at the University of Houston says, ''The worst consequence is not what the police do, but how the people begin to feel. Latinos who are U.S. citizens begin to feel the police are after them." This is the kind of thinking the ACLU engages in.

First, it is not the business of police at any level to protect the feelings of people, if that means abandoning the rule of law. Second, Hispanic Americans are apparently smarter than this Professor. Law-abiding Americans of Hispanic background do NOT think the same as illegal immigrants.

An attorney at the El Paso Catholic Diocese said, "In the end [the program] is being used to go after individual undocumented immigrants and their families, many who are U.S. citizens." This is typical of the ACLU position, and is both true and deceptive. In many of these families, the adults are illegal immigrants and in violation of the law. Some of the children, however, are born on American soil, and under current law they are citizens and therefore "anchor babies" who provide benefits to the parents in attempting to stay in the US.

Another attorney for illegal immigrant interests refers to "harassment" and "racial profiling." In the view of the ACLU, efforts to enforce US law are classified as harassment. It is not a surprise that about 90% of the illegals arrested are Mexicans who speak Spanish, since about 100% of those who sneak across American borders, are Mexicans who speak Spanish.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5198340.html

The facts for this comment, but not its legal conclusions, come from an item reported by Fox News on October 7th.

The death penalty for Jose Ernesto Medellin has been confirmed at all levels in the Texas courts, and in federal courts, for leading a gang that engaged in a particularly reprehensible torture, rape and murder of two young girls in Texas, years ago. But Medellin is an illegal alien, so he has mounted one more challenge to his death sentence.

Whether the ACLU is engaged in this particular case, there is no doubt that it approves of any effort to prevent this man from being executed. That is the universal approach of the ACLU's Death Penalty Project.

There are 51 Mexicans in jail for major charges, including Medellin, who claim that their convictions in the US are illegal because US authorities did not inform the local Mexican consulate, to provide legal services to the charged individuals. They made this claim in the International Court of Justice at the Hague. That Court ruled that the convictions of these individuals violated their rights under the 1963 Vienna Convention.

There are serious problems with this approach. First, the US has deliberately not approved the treaty that would give the International Court of Justice any jurisdiction over American courts and American law. Second, any defendant can waive any rights that he has, by not raising them, and Medellin did not raise any objection based on the Mexican consulate not being notified until years after his original conviction.

Third, like all defendants without funds, Medellin was provided counsel without charge. That is a right that most defendants in most cases in most nations, never receive. And lastly, there is zero doubt that Medellin led the gang which committed these brutal, double murders. He confessed, and his confession is a matter of record. Other members of his gang in this murder have already been executed, or have avoided execution by pointing out that they were "too young to be executed."

For whatever reason, President Bush is urging Texas courts to follow the finding of the Court at the Hague, even though that Court has no jurisdiction here. This idea, that the US Supreme Court should make decisions based on foreign law, has long been supported by the ACLU, and accepted, sadly, by some members of the Supreme Court.

The state of Texas and its courts have consistently taken the position that Medellin was given all rights available to citizens of Texas at every stage of his trial and appeals. They also take the position that no foreign court has any authority to direct what US courts should do, in trying anyone who has been charged with harming or killing an American citizen in America. And lastly, they take the position that the President of the US has no legal authority to instruct any court in the nation to take any particular action in any particular case.

It is the view of The American Civil Rights Union that the US Supreme Court should obey and follow the US Constitution, and not any foreign source of authority - court, legislature, whatever - in deciding what the Constitution means. If the Supreme Court does that, this final appeal by Medellin should be rejected, and he should be executed as promptly as possible.

The one part of the story which is missed in the article is the lack of jurisdiction of the International Court over any part of the US. This is critical because no President has ever submitted the treaty for that subject to the Senate for confirmation, nor has it ever been considered by the Senate.

Go here for this story on the Net:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299917,00.html

The facts for this story, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article published by CBS 13 in Reno, Nevada, on 4 October.

The facts of this matter seem clear. A bar in Reno was flying the Mexican flag above the US flag on the same flagpole. A US veteran saw this, knew it violated the US flag code by displaying a foreign flag above the US flag.

Jim Broussard explained his action by saying, "I took this flag down in honor of my country with a knife from the U.S. Army. I'm not going to see this happen to my country. I want to see someone fight me for this flag."

The Reno police recognized that the flag display in this case was wrong. But they took the position that the US flag code is "advisory" because it has no "criminal enforcement requirements."

The ACLU entered the fray, against the position of the veteran. In a statement the Nevada ACLU said, "If the federal flag rules were mandatory, they would clearly violate the First Amendment, which protects every American's right to speak and express themselves, including their choice of flag to display."

The ACLU had the chutzpah to add this, "In 1989, the Supreme Court held that we even have the right to burn our own flag." In that case, the ACLU got the US Supreme Court to rule by a narrow margin that it is freedom of speech for an American to burn an American flag.

Let's assume that is true. What is the message in burning a US flag? Does it mean "I hate America"? Or, "I hate Americans"? Well, what would be the message if this veteran had not merely rescued the US flag from misuse, but had removed and burned the Mexican flag? His real message was "I respect America." But had he destroyed the Mexican flag, would it have meant, "I hate Mexico"? Or, "I hate Mexicans"?

The ACLU defends the destruction of the American flag, for the message it conveys. On the other hand, in this case, they are protecting the Mexican flag from disrespect. This one incident demonstrates that the ACLU has no use for real, even-handed freedom of speech. To the contrary, they believe only in the freedom of anti-American speech. Any pro-American speech deserves to be crushed like a bug in a corner.

This inherent contradiction of the ACLU's flag positions was right there in front of the reporter. Somehow, he missed the story. How sad. By the way, the Reno TV station is allowing viewers to vote on whether this veteran was a "vandal" or a "patriot." By 73% to 27%, the local residents call him a patriot.

For this story on the Net, go here:
http://cbs13.com/national/local_story_277081459.html

The facts for this comment, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article published in the Minnesota Monitor on 25 September.

The Minnesota prosecutors have filed their response to the plea by Senator Larry Craig's attorneys filed in an effort to have his entered and accepted guilty plea withdrawn in the airport sex investigation arrest. Contrary to the Senator's allegation that he was "rushed" or "pressured" to plead guilty, the reply notes that he pleaded guilty by mail. This allowed maximum time and opportunity for the Senator to consider whether to plead guilty to the lesser charge.

Also, the prosecutor who handled the case notes that he talked directly to the Senator several times at the Senator's request. At no time, claims the prosecutor, did the Senator express any upset or concern about his guilty plea until after it had been accepted, put in place, but then was discovered by the national press.

Larry Craig's effort to have his guilt struck from the record may fail on the record, and never get to a hearing. But, if there is a hearing, the Senator must be a witness to testify about his "misunderstanding," or "pressure," in making his plea. Among the questions this writer thinks the judge should act in such a hearing, are these: How long have you been a Member of the House, and then a Senator? While you were a Member of Congress, did you not participate actively and regularly in writing federal laws? Did you understand the laws you were writing over those decades? Did you experience times of pressure and urgency in that process?

And given the answers that the record shows Senator Craig must give to those questions, the last one is: Given your experience with law, and with pressure, how can you say without laughing that you could not handle the situation presented to you prior to your plea of guilt to a lesser charge?

The last interesting factor is that the ACLU sought to file an amicus curia brief in the trial court, supporting the position of Senator Craig. Trial courts generally are hostile to amicus briefs, unlike appellate courts which welcome them.

The fact that the ACLU has sought to file such a brief in this case indicates how strongly and consistently the ACLU supports the homosexual agenda at all opportunities - in cases concerning school programs, in a case concerning the North American Man-Boy Love Association in Massachusetts, and now in Minnesota, supporting the "right" of adult males to seek sexual relations with other males in a bathroom built at an airport for the ostensible purpose of relief for the traveling public, both men and boys.

The website listed below has a click link to all the pleadings in this case, filed both by the Senator and the State, if anyone cares to read the original documents.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2516

The facts for this comment, but not the legal conclusions, came from an article published on KGO7 TV on September 24.

The US Marines proposed to shoot a recruiting commercial on the streets of San Francisco, as they already had on the streets of New York. They wanted their famed Silent Drill Team to perform for just a few minutes on ordinary city streets. New York said yes. But San Francisco said no.

The ACLU was not directly involved in the rejection in San Francisco, but it's thinking on the subject of military recruiters definitely was. If the ACLU was genuinely concerned about preserving freedom of speech, it would take the side of the Marines in San Francisco. But for some odd reason, the ACLU is silent on this.

The rejection of the Marines in that City came from the Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Commission, Stefanie Coyote. She said the Marines could shoot film on California Street, "as long as there are no Marines in the picture." Of course, the function of a film commission there, as anywhere else in the country, is to promote film makers' choice of that locale for shooting.

Captain Greg Corrales is in charge of the police unit that supports film crews working in the City. He is also a Marine veteran, and his son is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.

Captain Greg Corrales commands the police traffic bureau that works with crews shooting commercials, TV shows and movies in the city. He's also a Marine veteran and his son is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. He said, "Ms. Coyote's politics blinded her to her duty as the director of the Film Commission and as a responsible citizen."

Originally, Ms. Coyote refused to offer the TV station any reason for censoring the Marines. At the meeting of the Film Commission, she claimed that it was "because they wanted to shoot in rush hour." But Captain Corrales pointed out that the Commission often approves shoots during rush hour, especially if they are short and have limited impact. The Marines wanted to close one lane, for a few minutes.

Several Marines who commented on the City's actions pointed out that it routinely allows events which can totally block traffic in the City, such as anti-war protests, and Critical Mass (a large bicycle event). They noted that this refusal is similar to the City's refusal of docking space for the USS Iowa, banning Junior ROTC from the high schools, and attempting to bar the Blue Angels from the annual air show.

Source for original story on the Net: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=5673526

The facts for this comment come from a Press Release of the Institute on Religion and Democracy on 20 September. (Ordinarily, a press release from an interested party would not be used as the basis of a comment. But the dispute between the Methodists and a lesbian couple has been reported elsewhere, and New Jersey has definitely taken the side of the lesbians.)

The Ocean Grove Camp Ground was created and developed by the Methodist Church in the 19th century. At all times it has been owned and operated by the Methodists. For more than a century the Methodists have invited citizens of New Jersey, regardless of their religious beliefs, to share in the use of the property. Many people have asked for, and been granted, permission to conduct marriages on the property. However, it is the stated policy of the Methodist Church not to conduct same-sex ceremonies on its property.

A lesbian couple asked for permission to marry on the property, and were refused. They then complained to the state. The NJ Commissioner for Environmental Protection then ruled that Ocean Grove was no longer tax exempt as a "public place" because it would not permit the lesbian "marriage" there.

It is unclear whether the ACLU was involved in the case. It is entirely consistent with the ACLU's position in other cases that it would support the "right" of the lesbians to get "married" on Methodist property. In the reporting of the story, it was not made clear why the Commissioner for Environmental Protection has any power whatsoever over the tax exempt status of any property, whether it belongs to the Methodists or anyone else.

It is black letter law that no state has the right to dictate to any religion what beliefs it must adhere to, on its own property. It is also black letter law that no state can discriminate between religions, by granting tax exemption to one religion but not to another, based on the state's opinion about the beliefs of each religion.

Of course, New Jersey does have the power, if it so chose, to end the tax exemptions of ALL religions in that state. No politician in his right mind would ever suggest such a thing, but it is theoretically possible.

The source does not suggest what steps the Methodist Church is taking next to confront the religious discrimination just presented by the State. Presumably, there are appeals available and they have been pursued. But, there is an inexpensive, simple solution which might get a good result much faster.

The Methodists could post a sign at the entrance to Oak Grove Camp Ground which says: "For a century, the Methodists have warmly welcomed people of all beliefs to share the hospitality of this Camp. Now, the State of New Jersey says that is not acceptable. So, if you are not a believing Methodist, you can no longer come here."

"If you object to that, as we do too, please call [BUREAUCRAT] at [PHONE NUMBER] and tell him to reverse his decision against the Church and the Camp Ground. If you get no satisfaction from him, please call [STATE REPRESENTATIVE] and [STATE SENATOR]."

The belief of this writer is that $100 spent to post this sign would get a just result much faster than 100 times that much, spent on lawyers.

Source for original story on the Net:
http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKVLfMVIsG&b=390529&ct=4455835&tr=y&auid=3022851

The ACLU has settled one case against Homeland Security concerning a holding facility in Texas for whole families of illegal aliens. At the same time, one of the largest, most left-wing unions in the US files a new suit against Homeland. Both cases are of a piece in trying to prevent the US from enforcing its immigration laws.

The lawsuit Texas concerned the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas. The ACLU had claimed that Homeland Security was "mistreating" families, and especially children, who were being held pending deportation at that place.

A fact-finding trial was about to begin concerning that facility. According to the article, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had begun "improving education, recreation, medical care and privacy standards at its first large holding facility for illegal immigrant families." From the Washington Post article, it is not possible to judge whether these were improvements that ICE intended to make anyway, or were caused by the filing of this law suit.

When filed, the ACLU lawsuit claimed a chamber of horrors as being inflicted on long-suffering immigrants, without ever using the word "illegal." Apparently, the ACLU abandoned any claim that the families who were taken into this facility were anything other than probable illegal aliens who could be deported when they had been given a hearing on that matter.

Also, it is worth noting that the ACLU switches sides on factual matters, choosing the position with the highest "ain't it terrible" index. In Massachusetts, the ACLU challenged ICE "raids" that "separated parents from their children." In Texas, the ACLU challenged ICE precisely because it was not separating children from their parents.

Interestingly, the Post includes in this article a separate subject of a different suit in Oregon. It states that "the Service Employees International Union plans today to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., against another federal immigration agency, charging that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exceeded its authority by raising fees significantly July 30, including increasing charges for citizenship applicants from $400 to $675.

"The increase 'presents a huge barrier to thousands of immigrants' anxious to vote in the 2008 presidential primary and general elections, said Eliseo Medina, the union's executive vice president. 'This lawsuit is about accountability.' "

Were the reporters and editors responsible for this article thinking as they were typing in preparing these two paragraphs? Everyone who has not been living under a rock knows that illegal immigrants are paying upwards of $5,000 a piece to be smuggled into the United States. And yet, this particular American union claims that raising the fee for a citizenship application by - are you ready for this? - $275.

But most important is the absurdly laughable reason why the SEIU has filed this case, because thousands of immigrants are "anxious" to vote in next year's elections. Even aliens who have a right to become citizens under an obvious category such as marriage to an American, do not get their citizenship fast enough to vote in next year's elections. A competent reporter or editor should have known this, and pursued an additional point.

Perhaps the Executive Vice President of this Union was committing accidental truth, admitting that these illegals WILL vote in next year's elections, unless effective steps are taken to cut down on vote fraud.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in the Washington Post, published on 26 August.

Go here to find this article on the Net.

It is well-known that illegal aliens often use false Social Security numbers in seeking employment in the US. Research has shown that in some instances, hundreds of illegals are using the same number, often taken from a real and employed American. To deal with this, Homeland Security adopted a new regulation requiring employers to take action when notified that an employee had an apparently false Social Security number.

The ACLU and the AFL-CIO claimed that this would be used as "an excuse" for employers to fire employees. But the law allows the employee 90 days to correct the problem before they would be fired. The San Francisco judge who issued the injunction was appointed by former President Clinton. If the injunction is made permanent pending trial, the appeal would go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the most "liberal" and the most-reversed Circuit in the nation.

A logical conclusion was that the plaintiffs did some serious judge-shopping in this case. It could have been filed in any federal court in the nation. They chose to file it in San Francisco, where Homeland Security might have to appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court to dispense with this attack on efforts to deal with illegal aliens in the US.

Notice this telling statement about the case by John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, who said, "This rule is a new tool to repress workers' rights in the name of phony immigration enforcement." Notice this statement assumes that illegal aliens using other people's Social Security numbers have a "right" to do exactly that, and that American labor unions are in the business of protecting those "rights."

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from Webwire, an Internet resource for recently broken stories. This article was published on 4 September, based on ACLU documents.

Go here to find this article on the Net.

Interesting groups of people show up, sometimes, filing amicus curia briefs in the US Supreme Court. This is especially true in the latest case to review the legal rights of illegal enemy combatants held at Guantanamo, Cuba. These are some of those groups which are supporting the ACLU idea that all prisoners, regardless of their status, are entitled to full-dress trials in Article III courts, rather than the kind of military tribunals under which Nathan Hale was tried and executed by the British, and Major John Andre was tried and executed by the Americans.

There is, of course, a more recent example: the trial, conviction, and execution of six of eight German saboteurs in 1942 by a military tribunal. That was approved by a unanimous Supreme Court in the Quirin case in that year.

Twenty retired federal judges signed onto the argument that the unanimous Quirin case was wrong, and that these detainees should be tried in ordinary courts, with public trials and all those benefits which are not permitted in military tribunals.

Tribunals are conducted in secret because in wartime letting the enemy know what you know will get people killed. We are at war; that's when military tribunals are used. Makes you wonder who appointed these judges, and what they did while they were on the bench. Reading law books on unanimous Supreme Court decisions was obviously not part of that.

A competent reporter might have inquired into the political backgrounds of those twenty judges to help the readers understand why they want the Supreme Court to overturn existing law. At the very end of the article, it says the judges "are both Republicans and Democrats." That phrase conceals, rather than reveals. How many of each? Appointed by whom? There is a tendency of most judges to follow the judicial philosophy of the President who appointed them.

Joining the judges are "two rear admirals and a Marine general." My understanding is that there are several thousand retired flag officers, which would include these three gentlemen. Again, the reader gets a better understanding, when the fact that three flag officers signed onto this brief, that 2,351 (or whatever) flag officers didn't sign on.

The final and most appalling group are "383 current or former members of the European and British parliaments." What business is it of residents of other nations, who are or have been members of foreign governments, to tell the US Supreme Court how to rule on the US Constitution for the safety and welfare of US citizens?

The 383 European politicians are described as having "divergent political views." Given the current membership of the European Parliament, that probably means they range from hard-left to left.

In another brief in the same case, "25 retired American diplomats" are quoted as claiming that anything less than full access to American courts for the detainees will be "seized upon by repressive governments as a license to incarcerate their own citizens and others with impunity."

Let's put this in context. Robert Mugabe, who has robbed and murdered his way through Zimbabwe so a nation which was once prosperous and exporting food now faces genocidal starvation, blames this on Britain. He's behind the times. These former American diplomats think he should blame the US.

Again, it would be helpful to the readers of this article to state what American administrations first appointed these former diplomats. That information might provide a strong clue why a small fraction of retired US diplomats are siding with the ACLU and against the Supreme Court on this critical issue.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an Associated Press article in the San Diego Union-Tribune on 24 August. (Go here to find this article on the Net)

The Attorney General of New Jersey has done the work of the ACLU in telling the Mayor of Morristown that his police should not check the immigration status of people pulled over for traffic stops or minor crimes. Mayor Donald Cresitello first proposed that in a letter to US Attorney Christopher Christie.

The US Attorney's reply claimed that this plan "directly contradicted" plans by the Attorney General of New Jersey, Anne Milgram, to check the immigration status of people charged with serious crimes or drunk driving. The US Attorney also wrote that checking status for less serious crimes is "something our office thinks should not happen."

The Mayor is trying to be more diligent in finding illegal aliens in his jurisdiction than either the State of New Jersey or the US government. And representatives of both the state and federal governments conclude - and put it in writing - that this is a bad idea. This happened in a state where the bodies are not yet cold in the ground for the assassination of three young people by an illegal alien who should long since have been behind bars, or thrown out of the US. One victim survived and told police what she saw. Two juvenile accomplices have apparently confessed.

In the entire article, only two people spoke the plain, unvarnished truth. The Mayor did so when he said the state's Attorney General had "handcuffed law enforcement in the state." The other burst of semi-honesty came from Maria Juega, of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who said, "The mayor wants to purge immigrants from his town."

Ms. Juega is being semi-honest because she missed one word. The Mayor is not trying to "purge immigrants." If so, he would be packing his own bags, because his name sounds very Italian. He is trying to get "ILLEGAL immigrants" out of his town.

The deliberate sloppiness of claiming that steps against illegal immigrants are steps against all immigrants is how the ACLU and its allies - like this legal defense fund - try to defend the idea of open borders for the United States. They get away with this deception in part because members of the press, including Newsday in this very article, do not point out the critical deception. Perhaps in the midst of their personal bias, the press does not even notice this deception.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, are drawn from an article in Long Island Newsday on 27 August. (Go here to find this article on the Net)

John Gizzi over at Human Event Online, in his latest "Gizzi on Politics" post, has written an important post regarding the ACLU's efforts to thwart local ordinances to protect against the crime and costs of illegal immigration. Here's the relevant section:

The ACLU Strikes Again -- And Again -- For Illegal Immigration

At a time when thirty two states have successfully enacted legislation to deal with illegal immigration and more than fifty local governments have either taken action or are considering it on the issue, there is a major roadblock that their actions will almost surely have to overcome: the American Civil Liberties Union.

In two of the communities that have taken high-profile action to stem an alarming tide of illegal immigration, the ACLU is already hot on the job. In fact, an ACLU suit (in which the group was joined by seven other plaintiffs) against the town of Hazelton, Pennsylvania was recently upheld in U.S. District Court. Facing a rising tide of overcrowded housing and crime because of illegal immigrants, Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta won enactment of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which suspended business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal alien and also penalized landlords who rent to them. Once the measure took effect, Barletta told me in June, "you could see the [illegal] people leaving....There was nothing to keep them there when employers and landlords were going to check them out."

Now Barletta and the city fathers must go the U.S. Court of Appeals in an attempt to overturn the decision, issued by a Clinton-appointed district judge, James Munley.

In Prince William County, Virginia, County Supervisor John Stirrup was inspired by Barletta's original measure (which he read about in HUMAN EVENTS) and offered a tough measure of his own to deal with the mounting illegal immigration problem: permitting the county police force to ask residents if they are illegal immigrants and, if found to be in the country illegally, arresting them and sending them on to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for deportation. Following a crowded and stormy public meeting, the eight-member Board of Supervisors in Virginia's second-most populous county voted unanimously last month to enact the Stirrup measure.

And -- you guessed it! -- the ACLU was on the job again. In a letter sent to the supervisors on July 9th -- the day before the vote on the Stirrup measure -- ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis and Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg sent a letter denouncing "this ill-conceived resolution" and warning of "legal and policy problems that will have a severe impact on the civil liberties of Prince William County residents."

So, as Congress remains vague on what it will do to deal with the problem and local communities deal with what they say is a crisis that hits home, forewarned is forearmed: the ACLU is out there, waiting.

(HT: Power Line)

(HT: PowerLine)

Bill O'Reilly says in his column today (7/27/2007):

"Now, please, can we put this ACLU thing to bed once and for all? This is a far-left advocacy group with no interest in anybody's speech it doesn't like. Yeah, once in a while it will stick up for a non-liberal cause, but in a contrived public relations move. You want free speech? The ACLU is a dishonest group that hides behind the First Amendment in order to promote a secular progressive America."

O'Reilly is exactly correct in this commentary. The ACLU isn't about promoting the First Amendment or any other provision of the Bill of Rights, or even civil liberties. It is about promoting a far left political agenda under the guise of these covers. Just check out our list of ACLU outrages on this website. The ACLU loves to speak up for the rights of the Ku Klux Klan occasionally, precisely as O'Reilly suggests, because they can then appear to be broad-based defenders of free speech while not actually defending any serious non-liberal speech. But you never see the ACLU speaking up for the free speech rights of Christians, for example, or anyone who believes in traditional moral values, like the Boy Scouts.

According to an article on the webpage of Channel 6 in Orlando, the Florida Civil Liberties Union is considering a challenge to the red-light cameras being used at dangerous intersections in Orlando, Apopka and Orange Counties. The group cited a recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision which ruled against the cameras that take pictures of cars running red lights.

The Minnesota decision claimed that car owners "cannot confront their accusers" since the accuser is "a machine." Apparently, the court did not notice that all the crime scene photographs in the known universe, including those in Minnesota, were also taken by a machine known as a camera.

The Mayor of Orlando said that he wanted to keep the red-light cameras because they save lives. The article noted that there were 165,000 Americans injured as a result of cars running red lights anywhere in the nation, in 2005. Of those, "nearly 800" were fatalities, and of those, half were drivers and passengers in cars that were hit by drivers running red lights. The article noted that an intersection in Orlando with an "experimental" camera experienced a 40% decrease in violations, and a 50% decrease in crashes, when the camera was in place, and in use.

Since there is no question that a policeman who saw a car run a light could charge the driver, the ACLU position is that using cameras is unconstitutional. That's a stretch for the real ACLU position; anything which helps get criminals off the street and save lives, MUST be unconstitutional.

It reminds one of a Joey Bishop line from a very forgettable movie, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"

On July 18, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on a well-deserved loss in court by the ACLU. Two fans of the San Francisco 49ers filed suit against the team and the National Football League, with the legal assistance of the ACLU. They claimed that their constitutional rights were trampled by the policy of the League, carried out by the 49ers, to conduct "pat down" searches of fans entering their stadium.

The First District Court of Appeals (state court) in San Francisco, ruled that these fans had "consented to the searches" when they showed up for the game, knowing of the policy in advance. The majority rested its decision on the fact that the Team and the League are private organizations, and are not bound to be open to all citizens without restriction, like government agencies.

While the ACLU is talking about appealing this case, to continue its attack on "pat down" searches, the article noted that a federal appeals court in Atlanta had reversed a trial court decision against such searches. Also, a federal trial court had dismissed a similar claim against such searches in Seattle.

Also, note that the searches conducted on people about to board the NY subway system were also upheld in court, on the grounds that people who did not want to be searched were welcome to turn away, and not enter the system

All these are common sense decisions, seeking to keep Americans from being killed wholesale, in public places. The ACLU does not care, or worse, is actively hoping for, the killing of large numbers of Americans in such places.

Investors Business Daily ran an editorial entitled, "Jihad in Schools," on July 9. It describes a program in a San Diego public school for setting aside 15 minutes a day for Somali Muslim students to pray at Carver Elementary School. And it has added Arabic to its teaching. And it has segregated boys from girls in classrooms. And it has banned pork and other non-Islamic foods from its lunchroom.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations defends this program. What is interesting is the position of the ACLU on this. Whenever Judeo-Christian actions, or even single words, are at issue, the ACLU mounts its high horse and claims that "the separation of church and state are being violated." Yet this is an instance of far greater intrusion of religion into a public place and into the pockets of the taxpayers, and the ACLU is tellingly silent.

Apparently there is no principle of separation of mosque and state in the United States.

Go here to find this story on the Net:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=268874251390676

Perhaps someone will remind the ACLU that the "A" in their acronym is for "American"? Until then, I am afraid that the American Civil Liberties Union will continue to work overtime to undermine the popular will and rights of law-abiding American citizens in order to secure privileges for the law-breakers within our borders, whether they broke our laws crossing our borders or have committed felonies.

Late last week, the ACLU filed suit in Arizona on behalf of five felons who want their voting privileges returned, despite committing crimes that under state law forfeits that privilege. According to the story in the Arizona Daily Star, "this is the first lawsuit in the nation seeking to overturn any state law that automatically disfranchises felons."

Just the week before, the ACLU posted their letter to Senator Mitch McConnell stating their opposition to an amendment to the immigration reform bill. This amendment would require voters to present a photo ID - a move that would allow voter precincts to determine if the people voting there are eligible to do so. Such a move would allegedly disenfranchise "undocumented" immigrants - who in most cases are "undocumented" because they secretly entered our country through the back door, and therefore were never enfranchised to begin with!

Meanwhile, as my colleague John Armor reported recently, the ACLU has joined a number of left-wing groups that seek to overturn a town ordinance in Farmers Branch, Texas - approved by nearly 70% of the local population when put to vote - that imposes sanctions on landlords who rent their apartments to illegal aliens. The purpose of the law is to protect the "health, safety and general welfare" of its citizens against the disproportionately greater threat to each brought by a population of non-Americans who are in this country, and that town, illegally. The ACLU has brought a similar suit against Hazelton, PA (see John's excellent paper on the subject, "The Hazelton Rebellion").

However, the ACLU supports towns that have fashioned themselves as "sanctuary cities" for illegal aliens by implementing a don't ask, don't tell policy regarding the immigration status of criminals and other persons stopped by local law enforcement. Here again the ACLU is advocating that laws duly passed by the elected representatives of law-abiding American citizens - this time, federal immigration laws - by either ignored or overturned by judicial fiat.

Whence this favoritism for the non-American and the flagrant law-breaker? Time and again, the ACLU is proving itself to be the most un-American of American institutions.

I swear I'm not making this up. The Tucson Citizen carries the following AP report:

ACLU says Maricopa violating TB patient's rights The Associated Press

"The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit claiming Maricopa County officials have violated the rights of a quarantined tuberculosis patient for months by treating him like a criminal.

"The U.S. District Court complaint filed Wednesday on behalf of Robert Daniels alleges that health officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have violated numerous constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"The suit seeks what it calls appropriate accommodations for Daniels, rather than severe and "inhumane" jail conditions.

"'It's good news for me,' Daniels said Wednesday evening. 'I finally have a chance to get out of this black hole.'

"Robert England, the county's tuberculosis control officer, declined comment.

"Daniels, 27, is under a court order and has been isolated in a jail ward at Maricopa Medical Center for 10 months, although he was not convicted or charged with any crime."

Now it's true that the ACLU is not litigating in favor of tuberculosis per se. It has not sought injunctive relief for the germs. Even the ACLU probably still recognizes that germs lack standing, and, even with standing, would not make the most sympathetic plaintiff class you ever saw. Nonetheless, with the overwrought characterizaion of mandatory quarantine as more-or-less of a dungeon, the ACLU walks right up to the line of suing for Mr. Daniels' "right" to have an increased opportunity to spread the disease. This "right" is apparently located in the Constitution, although the story fails to state in which part of the Constitution, exactly, the ACLU believes it is to be found.

At the time the Constitution was written, of course, quarantine was practiced far more frequently than it is today, and was enforced more harshly. Part of this was doubtless due to the medical necessity of the time, which has changed considerably since. But part of it was also due to the recognition by sensible people that the rights of the many to avoid exposure to a serious and sometimes fatal disease outweigh the rights of the few -- or in this case a single person -- to his freedom, at least until the danger of widespread infection has passed.

Thus, while this story of the ACLU's litigation priorities may be extreme -- at least I hope it is -- it is, unfortunately, emblematic of that organization's habitual inclination to put the supposed "rights" of the minority ahead of the well-being of the majority.

In that regard, there is one fact the story neglects to mention. Mr. Daniels previously violated a less onerous quarantine order when he went out in public without his facemask. So it's not as if Mr. Daniels is without a significant degree of responsibility for his present restraint.

Germs are just germs. They don't know about responsibility, and they don't make choices. Mr. Daniels did. And now, so has the ACLU.

Sometimes it is just too easy to show that the ACLU is sand in the gears of all parts of American society.

According to a story in the Grand Forks Herald, a grandmother in Grand Folks, North Dakota, has enlisted the ACLU to file suit to get her granddaughter on the honor roll at her school. The granddaughter takes "modified classes" because she is a "special education student." The school weighs those classes less than regular courses, because they are less demanding.

So, the ACLU wants a court to rule that dumber is really smarter. At least this is one of the most honest cases the ACLU has ever filed.

Farmers Branch, a small Texas town near Dallas, passed an ordinance imposing penalties on landlords who might rent their apartments to illegal aliens. The act included a requirement that the voters must approve it. In an exceptional turnout last Saturday, the voters did approve, 68% to 32%.

The ACLU and various parties took the town to court, claiming that the ordinance was unconstitutional. The court then ruled that the councilmen and residents of Farmers Branch are too stupid to govern themselves, substituted its judgment for theirs, and struck the ordinance as unconstitutional.

No, that's not the stated reason for the decision of US District Judge Sam Lindsay for issuing an injunction against the ordinance. But that is the effect of his decision. This was a "temporary" injunction, one that will probably remain in effect for years while the decision is on appeal.

The judge noted, correctly, that the Constitution gives sole power to regulate immigration to Congress. But then he dives right into the argument of the ACLU and others that Farmers Branch was preempted by federal laws on immigration. He did quote, but then passed quickly over, the preamble to the ordinance in which the town asserted its "police power" to act to protect the "health, safety and general welfare" of its citizens.

Had the court bothered to look at the history of cities, he would have discovered that "municipal corporations" were making decisions about how and where people could live and work, to protect their health and safety, centuries before the United States was a gleam in anyone's eye. What Farmers Branch sought to do was well within the normal power of any city.

The judge also failed to note that self-government through elected representatives is the most basic right possessed by all Americans. The Declaration of Independence states that "to secure these [unalienable] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

The Constitution in Article IV turns that statement of philosophy into a principle of law, when it guarantees to every state (and all its cities and counties) "a Republican Form of Government." And, in case the judge didn't know what that means, that is a government in which "the supreme power is held by the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives."

The court based much of its analysis on De Canas, a 1976 Supreme Court case, which approved a California law dealing with employment of illegal immigrants to the detriment of "lawful resident workers." In that case, the Supreme Court said that states (or cities) are engaging in forbidden "regulation of immigration" when they determine who should or should not be admitted to the country.

The court notes that Farmers Branch did not make any new determination of who should be admitted. Its councilmen and citizens accepted federal definitions, down the line. However, the court noted that the town adopted definitions and forms developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to be used in its regulation of landlord tenant law in the town. Presuming that the HUD laws and regulations have been tested and found constitutional, the court does not explain why Farmers Branch is "creating a new definition" when it is using existing federal documents, word for word.

The court did not consider any other issues in the case.

The law that this court denied to the town and its citizens, would have required that landlords ask all tenants to provide a declaration that they are citizens, or in the alternative, a declaration that they are legal aliens, and sign an immigration form created by Customs. These documents would be kept on file, and would be available as need be to both state and federal officials. Landlords who failed to follow these conditions would be subject to fines.

One aspect of this decision is pathetic. The court told Farmers Branch that it could not enact an ordinance solely within its own boundaries, because it was interfering with federal control of immigration. The double and obvious defects of that position are that the federal government is NOT controlling immigration now, and that the town did not say that anyone could not be in the US, only that certain illegals could not rent apartments in that town, no more, no less.

There is also litigation in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, against similar ordinances concerning both illegals being employed and renting apartments. These two cases are the leading edge of what will become dozens of cases around the country. Ultimately, it is the Supreme Court which will decide whether or not cities and towns can act with respect to illegal aliens within their own boundaries.

Since this is a simple matter of local decision-making, the towns should ultimately prevail. And when they do, they should seek costs and fees against the ACLU for assaulting the most basic civil right of all, the right to self-government.

Sometimes, an absurdity jumps off the page. Nothing need be added to the news article itself to reveal the pompous self-importance and stupidity of the participants. Here are the first two paragraphs of a story published on MSNBC on 21 March, 2007 ("School Sued Over Socks"). Even the names of the ACLU attorneys on this ludicrous case are appropriately funny.

"In 2005, Toni Kay Scott, a student at Redwood Middle School in California, arrived at school wearing socks with a picture of the Winnie-the-Pooh character, Tigger. She was escorted by a police officer to the principal's office and placed in in-school suspension because the socks violated her school's dress code, which restricts students to solid-color clothing, free of logos, in only cotton, chino or corduroy fabrics. After efforts to resolve the dispute proved unsuccessful, Scott, along with five fellow students and the ACLU, is fighting back against the school and challenging the dress code.

"Sharon O'Grady, a litigator in the San Francisco office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and pro bono lawyer for Scott, working in conjunction with the ACLU, said in an interview today, "We are asking the court to hold that the dress code for the Redwood Middle School is unconstitutional and also violates California law and to enjoin the enforcement of the dress code." The Pillsbury team was headed by Thomas V. Loran, III and also included John E. Janhunen and Alex A.L. Ponce de Leon."

As Dave Barry wrote in his comedy columns, "I'm not making this stuff up."

When James Madison penned the Bill of Rights in 1789, surely the idea of blocking local school children in Monroe, LA in 2007 from solemnizing their graduation ceremony with prayer was his intent, right? After all, he objected to official prayers, Thanksgiving proclamations to God, congressional chaplains, and worship meetings held in federal buildings while in the first congresses under the new Constitution, didn't he?

Well, no.

In fact, when Madison's good friend Thomas Jefferson - no Christian he, and often cited for support from those seeking a radical "wall of separation" between government and all things religious - did things that would make today's ACLU go berserk, Madison and the other Founders that sought to protect the states from an established national church were content.

Madison voted with Congress on December 4, 1800, to allow for the Capitol building to double as a church building - where Jefferson as president often chose to worship. Nor did he object when Jefferson began similar Christian services in the Executive Branch, both at the Treasury Building and at the War Office.

When Madison followed Jefferson into the presidency, he followed his friend's tradition of worshipping at the Capitol. And he went further, issuing several proclamations for public days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving.

If all this is so, then why does the ACLU object so strenuously when students at local schools wish to mark their graduation with prayer and thanksgiving to God? How on earth can the ACLU interpret the voluntary religious actions of a small school in Monroe, LA - even if led by school officials, which they aren't - as an establishment of religion?

Certainly, the Founders warned and worked against the establishment of a national church or religion under the Constitution. They did this while maintaining a highly favorable view of religious expression and worship by public officials in official settings up to the highest levels of national government. And they saw no contradiction in doing so.

So why is it that the ACLU - in the name of "religious liberty" - seeks to establish secularism all the way down to even the most local level? Who really is it, in this debate over school prayer, that is being consistent with the Constitution and intent of the Founders? Perhaps the ACLU should rethink its position, or at least come clean with its real intent, which is to overturn the Constitution and the great majority view of the people at those points it most disagrees.

One of the slogans of the opponents of the Farmers Branch immigration ordinances, was "Let the people vote." (See "Anti-Illegal-Immigrant Law OK'd in Texas.") Now, the people HAVE voted, 68-32, to approve the ordinances designed to discourage illegal immigrants in their town. So, the opponents are going to court to have an unelected judge tell the people and the town they have no right to make this decision.

In short, the ACLU and its allies are attacking the basic right of all Americans, to govern themselves under a "republican" government, which in accord with the constitutional guarantee means government by elected representatives. This subject will spread to many more than the 90 communities considering it so far. And the basic subject, constitutional self-government, should concern all Americans.

On 5 May, 2007, the Associated Press ran a story entitled "Local Immigration Laws Bring High Costs." It described a nationwide shakedown project by the ACLU. Only the AP missed the larger story.

The story as written, said, "Cities across the U.S. are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves against lawsuits and other challenges to ordinances enacted to keep out illegal immigrants."

It went on to describe how at least 90 cities had considered ordinances like those of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, but that many were backing away in fear of the costs. And, those costs come in two varieties: the fees that cities pay to their lawyers to defend themselves from legal attacks by the ACLU. The second cost is that courts may order cities to pay legal fees and costs to the ACLU.

It is only between the lines of the facts in this story that readers can see the 'shakedown' project being run by the ACLU. The ACLU wants fear, not logic, to stop cities from acting to protect their own citizens from criminal and financial losses at the hands of illegal immigrants.

It is beyond the ken of the AP to recognize that it is describing a wholesale assault on American civil rights. The first right claimed by the Declaration of Independence is self-government. The most basic right guaranteed by the Constitution is "republican government." For those not up on their constitutional definitions, that means living under laws written by our elected representatives.

In simple terms even a grade school student would understand, Americans are opposed to "taxation without representation." That means that all levels of government, including cities, should tax and spend through decisions of elected representatives, not non-elected judges. That means the whole thesis of this article should be reversed.

Hazleton-type laws should be approved by the courts, not struck down. And then, fee awards should be made against the ACLU in favor of the victimized cities. That's because the ACLU is attacking the most basic right of Americans, the right to self-government.

The California Catholic Daily features an article discussing the effort of the American Civil Rights Union and others to protect a private doctor's right to refuse to administer medical procedures that violates her religious convictions.

As described in the article, "Right to Refuse", a California doctor at a fertility clinic is being sued by a lesbian for that doctor's refusal to artificially inseminate her. Naturally, the ACLU and a slew of homosexual activists have lined up against religious freedom in the case, Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group, et al, is now being heard by the California Supreme Court.

For our view, be sure to read Bill Otis's op-ed, "Another Type of Conscientious Objector."

Smith v. Texas, No. 05-11304, was decided by the US Supreme Court on 25 April, in a sharply divided 5-4 decision. The convicted murderer was arguing against his death penalty sentence in accord with the theories of the ACLU's Death Penalty Project.

As usually happens in such cases, the Justices supporting the ACLU position fail to describe the facts of the crime. The facts appeared only in the Dissent by Justice Alito, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas:

Mr. Smith was a former employee of a fast-food restaurant. He took "some friends" to the restaurant. As the staff was closing up, he got inside by asking to use the phone. "The teenage shift manager, Jennifer Soto, let him in and greeted him with a hug."  He then followed her into the office, demanded the combination to the safe, beat her with his gun until the handle broke. He shot her in the back. Then he got a knife from the kitchen, inflicted numerous "torture wounds" and then "slit her throat."

At trial, the judge proposed jury instructions on "mitigation" about Mr. Smith's low IQ and childhood problems that were not sufficient under a recent US Supreme Court decision. Mr. Smith's counsel did not ask for a curative instruction, because that would have involved jury focus on the viciousness of this murder.

The Supreme Court reversed Smith's death penalty once, and remanded the case to the Texas criminal appeals court. It reviewed the case and reinstated the death penalty, because his counsel had not preserved the issue for review. The US Supreme Court then reversed again, and forced a new penalty phase hearing for this murderer.

The bottom line is that the ACLU wants to have a murderer like this retried again and again, until possibly he avoids the death penalty altogether. That is not the view of the American people. And that is not the view of four current Justices on the Court.

On the same day, two other Texas murderers, with similar histories of viciousness, also had their death penalties reversed by the Court on the same 5-4 votes between the Opinions and the Dissents.

The ACLU in Indiana has just filed suit against the state's Bureau of Motor Vehicles on behalf of a tree-hugger who doesn't like religion. Does that sound unfair? Here are the facts, from an article in the Journal Times in Fort Wayne, Indiana. (There is some irony in the fact that the article came to the Indiana newspaper from the Los Angeles Times, and has a distinct liberal bias as a result.)

Mark Studler is the ACLU's chosen plaintiff. He normally gets, for a special fee of $40, a pro-environment specialty plate. But when he found out that there was another plate "that he felt also qualified as a specialty plate" and which bore the motto, "In God we trust," he objected that it did not have a fee associated with it. The ACLU then filed suit against this "discrimination."

The article failed to mention that "In God we trust" is the national motto of the US, that it appears on our currency and many other places, and that it first appears in the fourth stanza of the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." It also fails to note that the motto has received constitutional approval in several cases, including in the Supreme Court.

The position of Indiana is that this is not a "specialty plate" like 79 others for special groups and purposes. Instead, it is an alternative standard plate, the other Indiana plate being one with a pastoral scene on it. State officials note that more than 540,000 citizens have chosen to use the plate with the national motto, which is more than 10% of all Indiana plates that have been issued for cars and trucks. This is one and a half times as many as ALL of the 79 specialty plates that have been issued.

Since it would be legal for Indiana to issue all its plates with the national motto on it - for reference see the "Live free or die" case from New Hampshire in the US Supreme Court - it seems obvious that the state can issue 10% of its plates this way. Neither the ACLU nor the reporter seemed aware of the New Hampshire case.

A common tactic of the ACLU when it loses a point in the political process is to use the judicial process to trump democracy, when the people fail to see the wisdom of the ACLU position. The same tactic has reared its ugly head in Wisconsin, where allies of the ACLU have mounted a legal challenge to prevent Judge Annette Ziegler from taking her seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the ten-year term she has just won in last fall's election.

The Wisconsin Democracy Project (WDP), which is a left-leaning ally of the ACLU, as one might gather from its name, has filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which hears complaints against judges at any level. That Commission has the power to recommend a reprimand, censure, suspension or removal from office. The final decision-maker in all such cases would be the Wisconsin Supreme Court itself, without Judge Ziegler participating, of course.

The gravamen of the complaint by WDP was that Judge Ziegler violated conflict of interest requirements by not noting that her husband was a director of a Savings and Loan, in cases before her involving that S&L. The charges both here and before the State Ethics Committee, which has no authority to discipline judges, came directly from the campaign of Linda Clifford, during last year's election campaign in which Ziegler won handily.

The facts for this piece come from an article, but not the legal conclusions, in The Wall Street Journal on 21 April. It noted that $40 million was spent on all races for the state Supreme Courts across the country, but of that, $6 million was spent on a single race for an open seat in Wisconsin.

The two candidates for this position were, in alphabetical order, Linda Clifford and Annette Ziegler. Clifford was a proponent of the concept of "a living constitution," meaning the same thing in Wisconsin that that concept means on the US Supreme Court, namely that the judges could read new meanings into existing language. They would do this based on their personal understanding of the ethos of the times.

The term used in many Wisconsin newspapers during the race was that Clifford believed in a "flexible constitution." It should be no surprise that Linda Clifford was closely associated with the ACLU in Wisconsin, and with Planned Parenthood. She also had no prior experience as a judge.

Annette Ziegler was a sitting judge on the Washington County Circuit Court, with an established record. By contrast to her opponent, Ziegler believes in strict construction, that the proper business of a judge is to interpret the laws and the constitution according to original intent. She believes that a judge should follow and apply the law, not write new law from the bench.

Due to serious campaigning and fund-raising, and against a tide of media bias, Ziegler defeated Clifford by a significant margin of 58% to 42%. The people of Wisconsin chose a judge who would obey the law, not rewrite the law.

My colleague Eric Langborgh notes in his piece below that the ACLU has taken umbrage at the offer by a private person to give Bibles to high school students, apparently during the school day. Eric quotes ACLU attorney Yale Freeman as saying, "There is a time to speak you[r] religious beliefs and that is in your church." Eric believes Mr. Freeman's words give away the otherwise "unspoken policy of the ACLU to push all religious expression safely inside the walls of church buildings."

To illustrate that the ACRU practices the free speech it preaches, I respectfully dissent. As has been widely broadcast, the "flying imams" have demanded that prayer rooms be set aside for them in publicly-funded airports, and the Muslim Student Association in Minneapolis has sought, it would seem successfully, to have taxpayer money spent on basins to be used at the local community college for the Islamic religious ritual of foot washing. If the ACLU has raised any objection to these things -- much less threatened a lawsut -- I haven't seen it.

Accordingly, it may not be the case that the ACLU seeks to push ALL religious expression safely inside the walls of the church. Evidently, some religious expression, namely Islamic, need not be pushed inside the walls of the mosque. Airports and public colleges are, in that instance, OK.

As noted, some religions are more equal than others.

The following quote by ACLU attorney Yale Freeman is astounding:

"There is a time to speak you [sic] religious beliefs and that is in your church."

Mr. Freeman said this in defense of the ACLU's objection to a private citizen offering Bibles to students during lunch at various high schools in Collier County, Florida. (HT: Stop the ACLU)

As local news stories report (here and here), many students and teachers gladly accepted the Bibles and thanked Jerry Rutherford, the giver of the gifts. And those who didn't want them were not forced to take them.

What is so astonishing here is not whether the Bible distribution was permitted by the school district's policy. (Indeed, it seems the policy prohibits such action, though the constitutionality of that policy is certainly in question.)

Rather, the blatant honesty of Mr. Freeman in his opposition to religious speech is what is so amazing. As he went on:

"There's really no reason to introduce it into the secular school system. There is plenty of opportunity to worship freely."

In other words, only Secularism is welcome in schools financed by tax dollars collected from all citizens, including the religious. Fortunately, the United States Supreme Court disagrees with this view.

In essence, Mr. Freeman has given voice to what has long been the unspoken policy of the ACLU: to push all religious expression safely inside the walls of church buildings. "Outside of official worship services, Christian," the ACLU is saying, "you are very welcome to keep your mouth shut."

Here's my question for Mr. Freeman: Where in the Constitution does it state that free speech is the right of all Americans excepting the religious, who must abide by special free speech zones in their churches and synagogues? What Founder advocated for this peculiar notion?

While the ACLU's position on this issue is absolutely wrong, at least their candor here is refreshing.

The attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union must be exhausted. It's not easy to contort one's reasoning in such a way that defends the Nazi's right to march while simultaneously supporting so-called hate crimes legislation. Perhaps a little consistency would be less hazardous to their mental health?

In recent weeks, the ACLU has come out in strong support of the American National Socialist Workers Party of Roanoke, VA -- a neo-Nazi group -- and their plan to march through a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Cincinnati tomorrow. This is par for their course: the ACLU pushed for -- and won -- the landmark Supreme Court case in favor of Ku Klux Klan expression, Brandenberg v. Ohio (1969).

At the same time, the ACLU has come out in favor of new hate crimes legislation sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). The bill -- H.R. 1592 -- would allow federal law enforcement officers to more easily investigate and prosecute so-called hate crimes.

But what crime isn't motivated by some form of hate, or at least callous indifference towards the rights, property, or life of another? Can we not just prosecute the criminal activity -- as we always have -- without making the same criminal act against given classes of people more heinous than against other classes of people?

Not according to the ACLU, whose m.o. has long been that some people are more equal than others.

In effect, the ACLU's logic concerning hate speech is this: crude, hateful speech that advocates violence and crime should be protected, but politically-incorrect, hateful thoughts or speech directly related to an actual violent crime against certain classes of people should be prosecuted, over and above the crime itself.

Got that?

A white paper submitted by the Alliance Defense Fund explains how dangerous Sen. Kennedy's hate crime bill is:

H.R. 1592 is a discriminatory measure that criminalizes thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and provides greater protection to some victims than others simply because of a status, whether chosen or inherent. The bill has the potential of interfering with religious liberty and freedom of speech as proposed, and creates additional risks for the future.

Make no mistake, that potential is real.

In 2005, Canada amended a very similar hate crimes law to protect homosexuals from "intolerance." During the two years preceding the passage of C-250, a number of lawsuits were filed against traditional Christians and Jews, with the Canadian courts generally sided against those traditionalists who spoke against the gay lifestyle and agenda. And since C-250 passed, the investigation and prosecution of Christians -- like this one -- has increased. "Hate speech" has become a "hate crime" in and of itself, even when not accompanied by criminal activity, violent or otherwise.

H.R. 1592 is bad law for a number of reasons. The tortured logic of the ACLU means that it could become even worse, proving once again that the ACLU is more interested in protecting the speech of Skinheads and Nazis than they are of devout Christians.

The facts, but not the legal conclusions, for this post come from an article on 23 March in the Washington Examiner by Quin Hilyer. It recited that the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had just reversed a federal trial court in Contra Costa County in favor of a religious group that wanted to meet on occasion in a public library. (Keeping religion out of public libraries, and pornography in them have long been ACLU goals.)