ACLU

Since I seem to mention StopTheACLU so often, I thought I should have a shorter way to refer to them. STACLU seems to fit the bill; a slightly longer version - stacluelessness - seems a fair description of their problem. A perfect demonstration is this post full of that trenchant analysis you've come to expect from them: Today is the day for the ACLU's attack on the NSA terrorist surveillance program in Detroit. The ACLU wants the program completely shut down. The plaintiffs don't really even have a case sense (sic) they have absolutely no evidence that they have been spied on. Ah, the catch-…
More of that "activist judges" hypocrisy on gay marriage, this time from Jay at StopTheACLU: My first concern on the issue is limiting the courts from usurping the will of the people. This legislation will do that. But why is that your "first concern" only on this issue? I don't recall seeing any complaints from you about the Bush administration running to the courts to get them to "usurp the will of the people" in overturning Oregon's assisted suicide law (passed by popular referendum, not once but twice) or California's medical marijuana law (also passed by popular referendum). In fact, you…
Well folks, the ACLU is at it again. Not content to undermine this good God-fearing nation by forcing terrorists to burn flags while having sex with underaged children and reading aloud from The Origin of Species, they are also flagrantly and wantonly undermining the simple-minded caricatures of their opponents. They did it again today by filing a brief on behalf of an elementary school student in New Jersey who was told she couldn't sing a Christian song in the school talent show (see the actual brief here). Those anti-Christian communist lawyers are brilliant, I tell you, bloody brilliant.…
One of the frequent readers here posted a link to my post about their silly guilt-by-association attempt regarding the sex change for prisoners case in Massachusetts, and the author of their article, glib fortuna, has replied. His reply is rather amusing. He writes: Frances Cohen IS AN ACLU VOLUNTEER ATTORNEY. I state clearly that the ACLU was involved "somehow" and never said that the case was being litigated directly by the ACLU. But in fact, the ACLU is not "involved" - an attorney who also did work in 2005 for the ACLU is "involved". This is a bit like arguing that since ACLU staffers and…
The conservative media is up in arms about a convicted murderer in prison in Boston who wants the state to pay for a sex change operation. Now let me say, first of all, that I agree with them on the substance. No, we shouldn't spend a dime on a sex change operation for this guy and I certainly hope that the courts reject the claim (he is now suing in Federal court to force the state to pay for the operation, but the case is incredibly weak). But having said that, I also find the level of emotional outrage aimed at such incidents to be rather absurd. Yes, it's a dumb lawsuit; people file dumb…
In a new post, DaveScot criticizes the ACLU for suing the state of Kentucky over a new law banning protests at military funerals. As usual, he gets the facts wrong and misses the point. The mistakes begin with the title of his post: "ACLU Supports Vile Protesters at Military Funerals." Nonsense. They don't support the protestors any more than they supported the Nazis in Skokie, or support Rush Limbaugh, or support Jerry Falwell. What they support is the idea of free speech, regardless of the content of that speech. And in this particular case, they aren't challenging such regulations across…
That's the question that we hear constantly from anti-ACLU types. Whenever they perceive an injustice, particularly against a conservative, they cry, "Where's the ACLU? Why aren't they defending this person?" The point of the accusation, of course, is to give the impression of inconsistency on the part of the ACLU. Here's a perfect example recently, from Tucker Carlson. On May 1st, he was ranting about Rush Limbaugh being railroaded by prosecutors in Florida and here's what he had to say: CARLSON: Where's all the -- I'm dead serious. Where is the ACLU? Where is all the -- the chorus of the…
Dennis Prager has a column at the Worldnutdaily complaining of the dangers of historical revisionism by the ACLU and anti-smoking zealots. The connection between the two? You got me. I'm a strong advocate of the ACLU on most things and a strong opponent of America's anti-smoking paranoia. But along the way, Prager engages in a bit of historical revisionism himself. He writes: One of the ACLU's greatest victories was getting the Board of Supervisors in a 3-2 vote (the three were the three leftist supervisors) to remove the tiny cross from the seal of Los Angeles County. Of course, this was…
Let's do a little test, shall we? Let's see if all those folks who cry and whine about that big bad evil ACLU coming in and "intimidating" local school districts by filling lawsuits and then, when they win, getting the legal fees reimbursed will condemn such fee awards when they cut the other way. Here's an article about a situation in a Texas school district where the administration would not give equal access to a student Bible study group. A Christian legal group called Liberty Legal Institute filed suit on behalf of the student group and won the case (as they should have, both the…
This looks interesting. A new blog has begun and it's called Don't Stop the ACLU, obviously in response to our old pals at StopTheACLU. This should be fun to keep an eye on.
Steven Voigt, writing at RenewAmerica, is complaining about the ACLU being able to collect legal fees when they win a suit against a government agency (you may remember Voigt from my earlier fisking of his terrible 14th amendment arguments). This is nothing new, of course; innumerable voices on the right have been complaining about this for years. Funny, though, they never mention it if the Alliance Defense Fund, the Christian Legal Society, the American Center for Law and Justice or any other religious right legal group does the same thing. When the ACLU successfully sued on behalf of Lamb's…
Thanks to Sandefur for sending me a link to this information. I've done a lot of work defending the ACLU for a long time, but on this one I will gladly condemn them, at least this chapter, in the harshest possible terms. The Florida ACLU has elected to its board a man named Parvez Ahmed, who said the following at a National Press Club speech on February 16th: "I think the next steps would be to broaden the scope of anti-hate laws and even contemplate about passing blasphemy laws, because blasphemy with such sacred icons, like the Prophet Muhammad, like the Koran, or the cross, or other…
You may remember a few weeks ago when I had a good laugh at the expense of our witless friends at StopTheACLU for thinking that they were going to be allowed to intervene in the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA over the wiretapping program. Well now it turns out that Debbie Schlussel, the equally witless attorney who told them they could intervene in the case if they paid her to represent them, has pulled out of the arrangement: Because I reported on this site, which has been deleted now, about a fight between Debbie Shlussel and other bloggers, Debbie has decided to no longer represent…
This is interesting. I wrote a few weeks ago about Lonnie Latham, the anti-gay minister who was arrested at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. In an interesting twist, the ACLU has filed an amicus brief in his case arguing that the ruling in Lawrence v Texas, which struck down state anti-sodomy laws, makes the law under which Latham was arrested unconstitutional as well: "The Supreme Court [via the Lawrence v. Texas decision] had made it crystal clear that when it comes to their sex lives, consenting adults are free to do whatever they…
The latest nonsense at StopTheACLU is this post written by "Jay" about a high school student in Florida who is suing because he says he was berated by a teacher for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance. The hyper-patriots have been fuming at this student for weeks, calling him a "punk kid" a couple weeks ago, but now they've upped the ante to saying the kid should be physically assaulted for not pledging allegiance: If I had been one of his classmates, I would have made him see some stars he would respect. If I were his parents, he wouldn't want to sit down after I showed him after…
I really should just start a daily column on the latest nonsense from the StopTheACLU folks. Here's their entry for today. The ACLU is receiving a TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR SETTLEMENT as compensation for suing the government over the way names get on the no fly list after two whiny little journalists were detained at San Francisco while checking in for a flight to boston. For those of you that wonder how the ACLU gets their slimy, traitorous hands on our hard earned tax dollars, here ya go; The government will compensate the ACLU for attorneys' fees, settling a lawsuit initiated by two San…
Clayton Cramer is also discussing the Polk County "free speech zone" situation, partially in response to my post on the subject. Along the way he manages to give a perfect demonstration of the kind of nasty, simplistic and unjustified rhetoric that he is so infamous for. After falsely claiming that the ACLU "had to file suit to prevent free speech on public property", he quotes an Orlando Sentinel article about the Polk County Commission voting to do away with the "free speech zone". Then he lets loose with this little gem of attempted demonization against Volokh and everyone else who defends…
Not only wrong, but completely backwards. Here's the situation. Polk County, Florida, has announced that it is doing away with what it called the "free speech zone" on the grounds of the county administration building. This was an area that they designated as a public forum where community groups could put up nativity displays at Christmas time and other such public scenes, at their own expense. StopTheACLU is blaming the ACLU for this because they had sued Polk County over it. But as usual, they have their facts completely wrong. There is a history behind this. Two years ago, the ACLU filed…
Eugene Volokh has caught Clayton Cramer yet again on the subject of the ACLU. This time at least he didn't make outright false accusations against them, he just asked a leading question with a negative implication that a few minutes research could have answered for him. In discussing a rather ridiculous case where an Oxford student was taken in for questioning for calling a policeman's horse "gay" - yet another example of how out of control British law is in regard to anything that smacks of homophobia - Cramer ends with this question: You wonder on which side the ACLU would have been if a…
If you think the StopTheACLU coalition is comprised of halfwits, you gotta figure that the Alabama chapter is even worse, right? Yep. I particularly enjoyed this delightful bit of irrationality involving our old pal Gerald Allen, the Alabama state legislator and past winner of the Robert O'Brien Trophy. It's written by Chip Broome, evangelist and apparent head of the Alabama StoptheACLU Coalition. He's complaining that the ACLU has condemned Allen's idiotic bill that would actually ban all books by or about gay people from state libraries and even universities. The ACLU is not here for…