Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This was so perfect that I had to edit my speech for Wednesday night to include it. From anti-gay whacko James Hartline and quoted, naturally, in the Worldnutdaily:
"The American Civil Liberties Union has done everything possible to destroy Christianity in the American culture and government. From tearing down crosses on public property to removing crosses and the Ten Commandments from governmental buildings, there has been no greater hate machine against our constitutional right to free religious expression in America than the ACLU!" Hartline said.
Notice how he shifts ground, using examples of government religious expression and then claiming that the ACLU is out to destroy individual religious expression? That's standard operating procedure for the ACLU haters.
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Comments
He forgot to call them communists. No respect for tradition.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | March 26, 2008 9:59 AM
This sort of conflation shouldn't come as a surprise when you realize that "Conservative Protestants' Religious Beliefs Contribute to Their Low Wealth", and that education and wealth are good indicators of each other. From the actual paper (free access!):
To some people, the conflation that Ed outlines is non-existent. They only see government interfering with their "God-given" rights (through a "Christian-influenced" Constitution) of freedom of religion. The way to deal with these sorts of anti-ACLU accusations from such Conservative Protestants (wingnuts thought they may be) may well be to follow the advice that Cortunix suggests over at his blog:I mean, we aren't trying to "convert the choir" with the issues of public displays of religion; proselytization in schools; accusations of a "homosexual agenda"; the mythology of the United States being founded as a "Christian nation"; and others. Why not use their own tactics of bluster and steam-rolling (which they can understand) against them? (Of course, make sure we have all our facts correct at the get-go.)
Posted by: Umlud | March 26, 2008 10:32 AM
Tell me again about that amendment thingy about separation of church and state that you have in America? I would ask Mr Hartline but i don't think he would understand about such a thing.
Posted by: Richard Eis | March 26, 2008 2:14 PM
""The American Civil Liberties Union has done everything possible to destroy Christianity in the American culture and government."
Whoa. "Everything possible?" I mean, you wouldn't have thought it, but in some ways they don't have much imagination, do they?
Posted by: Sastra | March 26, 2008 4:19 PM
I can remember telling Ira Glasser that for me the problem with the ACLU was that it wasn't radical enough, and he just laughed. Isn't it a crying shame that we need an organization like that just to defend the status quo against the reactionaries!
Posted by: Elizabeth | March 26, 2008 9:01 PM
Umlud, you said the following:
>> This sort of conflation shouldn't come as a surprise when you realize that "Conservative Protestants' Religious Beliefs Contribute to Their Low Wealth", and that education and wealth are good indicators of each other.
Hilarious. I don't find the study credible at all. She says that conservative protestants are "overrepresented" in the classes of people with the lowest amount of wealth. Instead of saying that conservative protestants constitute the greatest number of poor people, she instead says that less affluent areas tend to be overwhelmingly conservative protestant. And how does she measure affluence? By using absolute dollars - ignoring the fact that dollars are not wealth, PURCHASING POWER is wealth. You may have $300,000, but if it can only get you a crappy 2-bedroom condo in Compton, CA, you are NOT wealthier than a person who puts up $100,000 and buys a 5-bedroom house on an acre in Kansas. In KS you can have a similar living standard as somebody in NYC with a lot less money, therefore the person in KS is wealthier.
Posted by: mroberts | March 27, 2008 12:29 AM
Never mind that the ACLU consistently supports Christians and other religious people and groups whose freedom of worship is being curtailed. I found this site w/ a quick search trying to find specific links to examples:
Posted by: Hanspeter | March 28, 2008 5:17 PM
Bleh. Lost the link (darn HTML) http://www.aclufightsforchristians.com/
Posted by: Hanspeter | March 28, 2008 5:36 PM