|
Banned
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by NCB
At what point does the ACLU become an anti-American org? I'd love to hear some of y'alls opinion on this, but please, no knee jerk, party line rhetoric. For Heaven's sake, it's the Boy Scouts!!...............
|
I am quoting the first sentence that NCB posted in the thread starter, because
I suspect that this is the issue that is the true agenda of this thread, and that the BSA is simply the "hot button" issue chosen by NCB to malign and further discredit the ACLU.
I submit my belief that the ACLU is as American as apple pie, more importantly, it is as American as the Constitution of The United States. The attorneys and other Americans who support the ACLU and it's efforts to hold government and others who act unconstitutionally, accountable, via local and federal courts that must rule within the framework of the provisions of said constitution. I deplore the politics of former Georgia congressman Bob Barr, but I laud him for the recent work he has done in support of the ACLU.
The following can happen because of work the ACLU has done to preserve all of our right to assemble and to exercise free speech. The result is messy, I object to the tactics and to the message, but without the ACLU, it might not
be allowed to happen, and that would be un-American:
Quote:
<a href="http://www.whitecountynewstelegraph.com/articles/2005/03/10/news/news02.txt">http://www.whitecountynewstelegraph.com/articles/2005/03/10/news/news02.txt</a>
Groups chant their opinions at 10 protests
Archived Thursday, March 10, 2005 - White County - North Georgia USA
By Terri Blackwell, Carolyn Mathews and Melissa Winder
Picketers from Kansas, armed with hate-filled signs
and trampling on the American flag, stood outside White County High School Monday morning, greeting students and faculty as they arrived with words such as "God hates fag enablers" and "Thank God for 9/11."
Separated by a riot line of police, a group against the protesters chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, homophobia must go," and sang "Jesus loves me." In that group were several White County High School students, including Kerry Pacer, the organizer of a group that wants to affirm diversity at the school if it is approved by the administration. That group also contained members of a predominately gay church in Athens called Our Hope Metropolitan Community Church and one called Youth Pride of Decatur. The high school demonstration ended three days of picketing countywide by Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Westboro spent 30 to 45 minutes at each of 10 locations. Three were held Saturday afternoon; the group conducted six Sunday.
More than 30 members of area law enforcement agencies corralled the protesters and protected a peaceful, routine procession of students arriving at the school Monday. A law enforcement plane circled overhead.
The group of eight protesters, three of them children, traveled from Kansas to spread their message: That homosexuality is a sin and that the White County community is not doing enough to prevent the formation of a club that would affirm the diversity of the student body. The new group is called PRIDE (Peers Rising in Diversity Education). The club originally was called the Gay-Straight Alliance, but application papers for that club were withdrawn by Pacer and resubmitted under the current name.
The Westboro group was led by church head Fred Phelps' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper. Local Baptists have disassociated themselves from the group, citing its message of hatred. Phelps-Roper spent much of her time during the demonstrations wrapped in and standing on an American flag. She said the flag symbolizes a filthy, rebellious people. The red in it, she said, represents the blood of unborn babies torn from the womb and the "rectal blood of fags."
At the high school Monday, the Westboro protesters returned the chants of their organized opponents, singing, "Hey, hey, ho ho, feces eating has got to go." The Westboro group appeared at several local places this weekend, including Truett-McConnell College and St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church on Saturday, and several churches on Sunday. Police restricted the group to small, cordoned-off locations on the public right of way.
At the Truett-McConnell location, 7-year-old Jonah Benjamin Phelps-Roper said his group was picketing the school because "they turned the school into a sodomized whorehouse."
A handful of curious onlookers either drove by or observed the group from a distance. Only one local person joined in the protest. At Truett-McConnell, Cleveland resident Wendy Davison, 46, and a 12-year-old girl accompanying her protested that local churches were "lukewarm." At St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, Davison alone joined the Westboro group in protest, alternately displaying her own sign condemning the Catholic Church and holding one of the signs prepared by the Westboro group.
When asked if she had been to the group's Web site, "godhatesfags.com," Davison said she had and said, "I'm not offended by it at all. ... A faggot is that which kindles the wrath of God. The Bible calls on us to rebuke those who sin and bring their sin to light."
At the Catholic church, the Westboro group carried a specialized set of signs, some saying "Dyke Nuns" and "Pedophile Priest Church." Security was extremely heavy at the church, with more than 20 cars carrying local law enforcement, members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia State Patrol. A civil air patrol plane circled overhead.
In a field some distance from the protesters, a lone young man, Steven Perkins of Cleveland, alternately appeared to pray and to hold a sign saying "Who are you to make God's judgment for Him?" Perkins, who said he was gay, said Matthew Shepard's mother is his PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) mom and she had encouraged him not to attend the protest. Shepard was beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998. Westboro Baptist Church gained notoriety for picketing his funeral, insisting that Shepard had gone to hell for his homosexuality. "I've got to do something for my community, though," Perkins said.
Almost no one showed up for Westboro's Saturday protest of the Serendipity and Mountain Grove nudist camps, but neighbor Chuck Hampton allowed law enforcement to use his yard for parking. Hampton said the members of the nudist camp keep to themselves and don't bother him. "I think this is totally unnecessary," he said, referring to the group's protest. "What people do behind closed doors is their own business.".........................
|
NCB, if you got your wish.......and the ACLU ceased to exist, what alternative do you see doing the work of defending all of our constitutional rights, or......
do you see this work as even necessary ? Are you satisfied that our national political leaders and their appointees to sensitive oversight positions (Ashcroft and now, Gonzales) are faithfully executing the oaths that they took to "preserve and protect the consitution". Please do not paint the ACLU as "anti-American" and then paint your thread topic as a defense of the BSA, victim of an ACLU attack, because that tactic is an intended smoke screen to avoid asking the rest of us if we agree that the ACLU is a threat to "things American". I am not yet ready to sign on to the "up is down", "good is bad", "we have to bomb you to bring you democracy", "1984ish doublespeak" that populates well coordinated and oft repeated talking points that emanate from the white house and radio "talk" shows. Enough !!!!!! Already............. |