Inalienable
Human Rights
Are Not Privileges
By Jason Miller
05 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Ecclesiastes tells us there is
“no new thing under the sun.” Marsha West’s article
entitled American
Christian Loathers Union provides us with a pertinent and
timely example of this aphorism.
Throughout the religion’s
history, various practitioners of Christianity have defied the compassionate
teachings of Christ to perpetrate hateful, fear-mongering, and sometimes
quite lethal campaigns against those who do not share their beliefs.
The Inquisitions, the Salem Witch Trials, the persecution of Galileo,
the US military’s slaughter of 600,000 Filipinos in an effort
to (in the words of then US President William McKinley) “uplift
and civilize and christianize" them, and Focus on the Family’s
steady assault on homosexuals are but a few examples.
According to her bio at the
close of her article, “Ms. West is the Founder and Editor of the
E-Mail Brigade News Report
, an online news report for conservative people of faith. Marsha is
a freelance writer specializing in Christian worldview.” Evidently
part of holding a Christian worldview involves launching vicious attacks
on organizations about which one has limited knowledge. And perhaps
it also includes lashing out at groups which oppose one’s viewpoint
by intentionally dispersing distorted information about them.
As I did background research
for this piece, I was utterly astounded at the number of Websites and
writers devoted to stopping, hating, and opposing the ACLU. Despite
having left the organization because its defense of corporate personhood
conflicted with my strong opposition to predatory capitalism, I feel
exceedingly appreciative of the ACLU’s Herculean efforts to protect
the rights of the individual.
Consider this excerpt from
the ACLU’s mission statement:
The American system of
government is founded on two counterbalancing principles: that the majority
of the people governs, through democratically elected representatives;
and that the power even of a democratic majority must be limited, to
ensure individual rights.
Majority power is limited
by the Constitution's Bill of Rights, which consists of the original
ten amendments ratified in 1791, plus the three post-Civil War amendments
(the 13th, 14th and 15th) and the 19th Amendment (women's suffrage),
adopted in 1920.
The mission of the ACLU
is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees…
…We work also to
extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally
been denied their rights, including Native Americans and other people
of color; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people; women;
mental-health patients; prisoners; people with disabilities; and the
poor.
If the rights of society's
most vulnerable members are denied, everybody's rights are imperiled.
Since its founding in 1920
(supported by such luminaries as Helen Keller and Supreme Court Justice
Felix Frankfurter), the ACLU has fought tenaciously to preserve the
Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing
individual liberties. In a nation principally governed by a de facto
aristocracy from its founding (many of the Founding Fathers were highly
resistant to the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution),
We the People need an organization like the ACLU, despite some of its
extremist leanings.
Recently, the ACLU secured
what is arguably its most significant victory. In ACLU vs. NSA, Judge
Anna Taylor Diggs halted the Bush administration’s persistent
assault on “the separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative
Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States
Constitution, the FISA and Title III.” And she may have paved
the way for the prosecution of the cadre of criminals who have seized
power in the United States.
Utilizing the “War
on Terror” as a pretext, Bush, Cheney, and company have steadily
consolidated the federal government’s power into an executive
branch headed by a president who attained office illegitimately, twice.
As Judge Diggs wrote in her
43 page opinion:
"It was never the intent
of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly
where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated
in the Bill of Rights…. There are no hereditary Kings in America
and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers'
must derive from that Constitution."
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act afforded the Bush administration a legitimate means
of attaining authorization for its domestic eavesdropping program (from
the FISA court, which operates outside the realm of public scrutiny).
Ignoring the onus to yield to the system of checks and balances (which
is a bedrock principle of our Constitutional Republic) by seeking the
FISA court’s approval, Bush chose to act as the tyrant against
whom our Founding Fathers successfully rebelled.
Thank you, ACLU and Judge
Diggs.
Referring back to Marsha
West’s attack on the ACLU, as a strong proponent of human rights
and social justice, a former member of the ACLU, a former Methodist
(turned independent practitioner of personal spirituality), and an Eagle
Scout who also earned his God and Country award, I felt moved to address
some of the absurdities and misconceptions in her piece.
Ms. West begins her article
by stating that the ACLU has been called “the most dangerous organization
in America”.
On June 2, 2004, Bill O’Reilly (one of the corporate media’s
most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the Bush administration’s war
crimes and violations of Constitutional law) did indeed blather:
"Finally, the ACLU --
we talked about this yesterday and I -- and, you know, I have to pick
on the ACLU because they're the most dangerous organization in the United
States of America right now. There's by far. There's nobody even close
to that. They're, like, second next to Al Qaeda."
Enough said on that point.
Marsha West’s opinion
piece goes on to assert that the “ACLU is a secular organization
that exploits the law to impose their anti-God agenda”.
Interestingly, my research
uncovered that the ACLU has fought on behalf of the rights of Christian
persons or entities on
over twenty separate occasions. Some examples of the ACLU
waging its “anti-God agenda” include filing suit (or filing
an amicus curiae brief) on behalf of:
1. a Christian Valedictorian
whose yearbook entry was deleted by a public school because it contained
a Biblical passage
2. a second grader whose
public school prohibited him from singing “Awesome God”
in a talent show
3. a New Mexico street preacher
who was arrested for proselytizing to passing motorists
4. a member of Operation
Rescue who was prevented from protesting against abortion
5. a Christian church attempting
to run “anti-Santa” ads that were rejected by the Massachusetts
Bay Transportation Authority
6. a Baptist minister whom
local park authorities had prohibited from performing baptisms on public
property
7. a group fighting to prevent
the city of Boca Raton from forcing the removal of religious symbols
from their family members’ graves
8. and (none other than)
Jerry Falwell in his battle against a Virginia Constitutional prohibition
against churches incorporating.
Each of the examples I cited
resulted in positive results for Christians. Interesting record for
an organization with an “anti-God agenda”.
Ms. West laments that the
ACLU has colluded with liberal judges who legislated from the bench
to erode “traditions we’ve held in this country for over
200 years”. Would those hallowed “traditions” include
segregated schools, indigent people facing trial without an attorney,
law enforcement violations of the rights of those suspected of a crime,
suppression of freedom of assembly, forcing Jehovah’s Witness
children to salute the US flag, restrictive covenants preventing the
sale of homes to Blacks, public officials suing the press for “defamation”,
loyalty oaths, anti-miscegenation laws, and beatings of incarcerated
individuals? The ACLU and judges “legislating from the bench”
were instrumental in affording individuals legal protection against
these American “traditions”.
And we owe a deep debt of
gratitude to Chief Justice John Marshall, who was one of the first to
“legislate from the bench”. It was his “judicial activism”
in the Marbury v. Madison case of 1803 that elevated the power of the
Supreme Court to equal that of the President and Congress. With this
ruling Marshall forged the Supreme Court’s role as the arbiter
and ultimate interpreter of the Constitution. An independent and empowered
judiciary is an essential element in a free and democratic society.
Had Marshall not “legislated from the bench”, we would be
closer to the abyss of fascism than we already are.
To support her argument that
the ACLU’s efforts to remove the Christian God from the public
square are “ludicrous” because of the frequency of Christian
symbols “on government structures throughout the US….including
the Supreme Court”, Ms. West relies upon widespread misconceptions
which have been explained more thoroughly and accurately at:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp.
Incidentally, the ACLU is
not alone in its attempts to remove displays of Christian symbols in
public areas. The Anti-Defamation League has joined the cause.
Consider this statement by
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman:
"The notion that there
is a one-size-fits-all Ten Commandments at the heart of American law
and society is convenient, but not really true…There is no way
to pick one version of the Ten Commandments, display it and say that
this represents American secular tradition. In doing so, you are not
respecting people who are not Jewish or Christian, or who come from
other religious traditions."
Marsha West also expresses
significant concern that the ACLU has “vilified and viciously
attacked” the Boy Scouts of America. Careful scrutiny of the situation
reveals that rather than attacking the BSA, the ACLU has worked diligently
to prevent public entities from supporting an organization which requires
its members to swear an oath to the Christian God and discriminates
against Gays. I was in the BSA for five years, attained its two highest
honors, but now feel deeply disappointed in an organization which I
held in such high regard as a youth. There are many worthwhile aspects
to Scouting, but it is not the place of the public institutions of a
heterogeneous and diverse society to support such an entity.
The ACLU’s defense
of the rights of convicted sex offenders and NAMBLA also stirred considerable
consternation in Ms. West. Yet like many critics of the ACLU, her vision
of the forest is obscured by the trees.
As the ACLU stated concerning
its defense of the Constitutional rights of NAMBLA:
"Regardless of whether
people agree with or abhor NAMBLA's views, holding the organization
responsible for crimes committed by others who read their material would
gravely endanger our important First Amendment freedoms…We join
with all others in deploring the heinous crimes committed against Jeffrey
Curley . . . But the expression of even offensive ideas is protected
by the Constitution."
The raison d'être of
the ACLU is to protect individual people or groups of people from the
inevitable “tyranny of the majority”. Sometimes this puts
them in the unenviable position of defending the Constitutional rights
of morally repugnant individuals or groups, including NAMBLA, the KKK,
and neo-Nazis. Recalling the ACLU’s mission statement, the power
even of a democratic majority must be limited, to ensure individual
rights.
Regardless of how our society
ultimately deals with moral deviants or perpetrators of heinous crimes,
they are still human beings with human rights. Considering the magnitude
of the prison industrial complex, the US criminal justice system's bias
toward punishment over reform, and the fact that the United States has
the world’s largest prison population, it is highly unlikely that
this nation is going to “get soft on crime”.
In her piece, Ms. West quotes
conservative pundit Deroy Murdock (who is openly homosexual and therefore
benefits handsomely from the vigorous support of Gay rights by the ACLU):
“It would be nice to
see NAMBLA siphon its own bank account rather than the ACLU's to justify
its evil ways. The ACLU decides for itself where to devote its finite
resources. Hence, its leaders freely chose to stand with cheerleaders
for pederasty while torpedoing those who mentor rather than rape little
boys.”
So what are we to conclude
from this statement? As vile as they are, the members of NAMBLA have
no rights? The Boy Scouts can utilize public resources to promote Christianity,
bar those who do not swear an oath to God, and discriminate against
Gays? And in a pronounced deviation from its long-standing and strict
adherence to its mission to protect individuals from oppression by the
majority, the ACLU has suddenly become an advocacy group for pederasty
and an organization working to eliminate groups which mentor children?
As a former member of the
ACLU who worked actively with my local affiliate, a zealous advocate
for social justice and human rights, and a father, I feel quite confident
that the American Civil Liberties Union does not harbor a secret agenda
to promote child molestation or to eliminate groups which serve the
interests of our children. As a former Scout I can also attest to the
fact that some of the BSA’s heterosexual, “Christian”
leaders leave much to be desired as mentors.
Allow me to cite Deroy Murdock
from the same piece Marsha West quotes
"An old friend of mine
once said this about the American Civil Liberties Union: 'They're a
bunch of whale-saving, criminal-loving pinkos — and thank God
for them.'
This remark nicely summarizes
the ambivalence with which many people regard the ACLU."
Obviously we have reached
our conclusions about the ACLU by following very different paths, Mr.
Murdock, but I concur with you.
And as controversial and
extreme as they may be, I thank the Higher Power for the ACLU.
Jason Miller
is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually
and spiritually. He writes prolifically and his essays have appeared
widely on the Internet. He welcomes constructive correspondence at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
Marsha West's article:
http://www.newswithviews.com/West/marsha16.htm
Email Brigade News Report:
http://www.emailbrigade.com/
ACLU Fights for Christians:
http://home.comcast.net/~aasch/ACLUFightsForChristians.htm