ACLU In The News

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU Hails Rhode Island Department of Education Efforts to Stop the Use of Harmful "Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage" Curriculum in Public Schools

(Providence, RI) - Responding to a complaint filed by the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union last September, the state's Department of Education (DOE) issued an advisory to all school districts last week, instructing them to stop using a federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum in the public schools. The ACLU has hailed the development, arguing that the curriculum had raised serious privacy and discrimination concerns and needed to be stopped.

"We are very pleased with the state's response to the inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars to support discriminatory and religious teachings in public schools," said Steven Brown, Rhode Island ACLU Executive Director. "Students deserve facts, not sexism, in their sex ed classes."

The curriculum, developed by Heritage of Rhode Island and called "Right Time, Right Place," was offered in Pawtucket and Woonsocket public schools last year. In letters sent to the DOE Commissioner Peter McWalters, the ACLU argued that the program, run by a private organization, promoted sexist stereotypes, ignored the state's comprehensive sex education standards, invaded students' privacy rights and endorsed particular religious views. The DOE said in its advisory that after review by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Heritage of Rhode Island curriculum had been "determined to be NOT consistent with the Rhode Island Health Education Standards."

In addition to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in Rhode Island, federal dollars support Heritage curricula, a product of the South Carolina-based Heritage Community Services organization, in Georgia, Kentucky, Maine and South Carolina.

After obtaining documents relating to the program, the ACLU pointed out to the Commissioner that, among other things, the curriculum: taught students that "girls have a responsibility to wear modest clothing that doesn't invite lustful thoughts," and that a man is "strong" and "courageous," while a "real woman" is "caring"; included a video whose host explains how abstinence helped him to "honor my relationship with Jesus"; and required students to complete a survey, while providing identifying information about themselves, that asked a series of personal questions, including "When was the last time you had sex?"

Arguing that this curriculum appeared to "undermine or contradict - rather than supplement - statewide anti-discrimination policies or comprehensive sex education mandates," the ACLU called on the DOE to determine how and where the curriculum was being used elsewhere in Rhode Island, and to advise school officials of its illegality. The two-page advisory sent by the Commissioner last week makes clear that "Right Time, Right Place" is not appropriate for use as part of public school health curricula. The advisory also requires all school districts in the state to submit a copy of their school health education curriculum for the Department's review.

"Programs like Heritage of Rhode Island subject students to an abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum that is both ineffective and harmful," said Jennifer McAllister-Nevins, State Strategies Attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. "Teens need information on how to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy and STDs - they don't need sex education riddled with inaccuracies and gender stereotypes."

The Rhode Island ACLU's efforts to stop the misuse of public dollars to fund ineffective, medically inaccurate, and discriminatory abstinence-only-until marriage sex ed programs in their state is part of a national ACLU campaign, Not in My State. In September 2005, ACLU affiliates in 18 states called on local officials to keep unsafe abstinence-only-until-marriage programs out of public schools' classrooms. The campaign encourages officials to select health and life-skills curricula that present medically accurate, age-appropriate, and unbiased information about sex and sexuality. For more information, go to: www.takeissuetakecharge.org.

Since 1997, the federal government has spent nearly a billion dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Yet research indicates that many such programs do not help teens delay having sex, and some studies show that these programs actually deter teens from protecting themselves from unintended pregnancy or disease when they start having sex.

[Shammu]

House sponsor hopeful about bill that would bar ACLU’s rewards in religion lawsuits
Mar 24, 2006
By Tom Strode
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (BP)--Indiana’s John Hostettler is trying for the fifth consecutive Congress to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union from receiving government funds when it succeeds at legal challenges to public expressions of religion.

This year, the Republican representative has more hope than before thanks to the American Legion. The country’s largest veterans organization, with about three million members, has aggressively thrown its influence behind Hostettler’s bill, and the persistent congressman is encouraged at his proposal’s prospects.

Hostettler’s measure, the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA), H.R. 2679, is designed to close what he considers a loophole in federal law that has allowed organizations such as the ACLU to collect attorneys’ fees when they win lawsuits challenging religious symbols on public land or religious groups’ use of government property.

The American Legion released a 40-page document Feb. 28 urging its members to work for passage of Hostettler’s bill. The publication, "In the Footsteps of the Founders," provides a blueprint for building local support for the legislation in an effort to urge members of Congress to approve it. The document has been sent to all of the nearly 15,000 American Legion posts, and the organization’s national commander, Tom Bock, has urged members in a written release to “educate and activate” their communities.

The American Legion “has really, really gotten behind PERA,” Matthew Faraci, the communications director for Hostettler, told Baptist Press. “They have been going around to other members of Congress and trying to make them aware how important this legislation is. We are really confident that there’s going to be action on this bill.”

PERA would change a federal law that allows attorneys’ fees to be paid by the government when a court finds a person’s civil rights have been violated. The bill would bar the awarding of attorneys’ fees when the deprivation of rights involves the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

The ACLU and other organizations have gained attorneys’ fees in numerous cases in which they have won legal challenges to religious expression and symbols. These include:

-- The ACLU was awarded nearly $800,000 in attorneys’ fees from the city of San Diego, Calif., in its successful effort to prevent the Boy Scouts of America, which acknowledges God in its oath, from continuing to use Balboa Park, according to the pro-family organization Eagle Forum.

-- The ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center gained about $540,000 from the state of Alabama in a successful challenge of the Ten Commandments monument displayed in the State Judicial Building by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, according to Eagle Forum.

-- The ACLU received about $63,000 in a successful attempt to remove a cross from the Mojave Desert World War I Memorial in California, according to the American Legion.

That case prompted a unanimously approved resolution by the American Legion in 2004 urging Congress to pass legislation to bar attorneys’ fees in successful suits calling for the removal or destruction of such symbols. It also pointed to a special concern of the American Legion -- the consequences for crosses, Stars of David and other religious symbols on veterans’ graves.

Bock called the removal of the Mojave cross a “very dangerous precedent. There are 22 national cemeteries with veterans at rest beneath religious symbols. There is nothing in the law to prevent groups like the ACLU from filing establishment-clause lawsuits against those sacred grounds and then receiving taxpayer-paid attorney fees.

PERA “will restore legal balance in this country, and it will protect us from being the victims of this assault on our religious liberties,” Hostettler said in a Feb. 28 speech at the American Legion’s national conference in Washington, according to his written text.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State described Hostettler’s bill as “deeply misguided and mean spirited.”

“It is an attempt to deny Americans access to the federal courts to ensure their religious liberty rights,” the AU executive director said in a written statement to BP. “Few Americans are wealthy enough on their own to subsidize federal court cases, which can last years. The current law allows plaintiffs and their lawyers to recover reasonable costs and attorneys' fees if the case is successful. Hostettler's proposal would pull the financial rug out from under Americans, especially religious minorities, who believe their rights have been violated.”

The ACLU will be looking at Hostettler’s bill but is not yet prepared to comment on it, a spokesman for the organization’s Washington office told BP.

Hostettler’s bill has 40 cosponsors. There is no companion bill in the Senate.

House sponsor hopeful about bill that would bar ACLU’s rewards in religion lawsuits

[Soldier4Christ]

House sponsor hopeful about bill that would bar ACLU’s rewards in religion lawsuits
Mar 24, 2006
By Tom Strode
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (BP)--Indiana’s John Hostettler is trying for the fifth consecutive Congress to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union from receiving government funds when it succeeds at legal challenges to public expressions of religion.

This year, the Republican representative has more hope than before thanks to the American Legion. The country’s largest veterans organization, with about three million members, has aggressively thrown its influence behind Hostettler’s bill, and the persistent congressman is encouraged at his proposal’s prospects.

Hostettler’s measure, the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA), H.R. 2679, is designed to close what he considers a loophole in federal law that has allowed organizations such as the ACLU to collect attorneys’ fees when they win lawsuits challenging religious symbols on public land or religious groups’ use of government property.

The American Legion released a 40-page document Feb. 28 urging its members to work for passage of Hostettler’s bill. The publication, "In the Footsteps of the Founders," provides a blueprint for building local support for the legislation in an effort to urge members of Congress to approve it. The document has been sent to all of the nearly 15,000 American Legion posts, and the organization’s national commander, Tom Bock, has urged members in a written release to “educate and activate” their communities.

The American Legion “has really, really gotten behind PERA,” Matthew Faraci, the communications director for Hostettler, told Baptist Press. “They have been going around to other members of Congress and trying to make them aware how important this legislation is. We are really confident that there’s going to be action on this bill.”

PERA would change a federal law that allows attorneys’ fees to be paid by the government when a court finds a person’s civil rights have been violated. The bill would bar the awarding of attorneys’ fees when the deprivation of rights involves the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

The ACLU and other organizations have gained attorneys’ fees in numerous cases in which they have won legal challenges to religious expression and symbols. These include:

-- The ACLU was awarded nearly $800,000 in attorneys’ fees from the city of San Diego, Calif., in its successful effort to prevent the Boy Scouts of America, which acknowledges God in its oath, from continuing to use Balboa Park, according to the pro-family organization Eagle Forum.

-- The ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center gained about $540,000 from the state of Alabama in a successful challenge of the Ten Commandments monument displayed in the State Judicial Building by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, according to Eagle Forum.

-- The ACLU received about $63,000 in a successful attempt to remove a cross from the Mojave Desert World War I Memorial in California, according to the American Legion.

That case prompted a unanimously approved resolution by the American Legion in 2004 urging Congress to pass legislation to bar attorneys’ fees in successful suits calling for the removal or destruction of such symbols. It also pointed to a special concern of the American Legion -- the consequences for crosses, Stars of David and other religious symbols on veterans’ graves.

Bock called the removal of the Mojave cross a “very dangerous precedent. There are 22 national cemeteries with veterans at rest beneath religious symbols. There is nothing in the law to prevent groups like the ACLU from filing establishment-clause lawsuits against those sacred grounds and then receiving taxpayer-paid attorney fees.

PERA “will restore legal balance in this country, and it will protect us from being the victims of this assault on our religious liberties,” Hostettler said in a Feb. 28 speech at the American Legion’s national conference in Washington, according to his written text.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State described Hostettler’s bill as “deeply misguided and mean spirited.”

“It is an attempt to deny Americans access to the federal courts to ensure their religious liberty rights,” the AU executive director said in a written statement to BP. “Few Americans are wealthy enough on their own to subsidize federal court cases, which can last years. The current law allows plaintiffs and their lawyers to recover reasonable costs and attorneys' fees if the case is successful. Hostettler's proposal would pull the financial rug out from under Americans, especially religious minorities, who believe their rights have been violated.”

The ACLU will be looking at Hostettler’s bill but is not yet prepared to comment on it, a spokesman for the organization’s Washington office told BP.

Hostettler’s bill has 40 cosponsors. There is no companion bill in the Senate.

[Soldier4Christ]

Somewhere, someone is watching you as British habit bites Big Apple

It's taken as read in London that, if you walk around the City for any longer than half an hour, your beaming face will have been snapped by around 300 surveillance cameras, from those in the Tube or the shops or the bank to those ugly boxes that peer down from tall poles on the edge of the congestion charge zone.

Around a third of CCTV cameras in the western world are in Britain. It's now accepted as the way things are, something to be bemoaned but hardly the kind of snooping likely to provoke civil unrest.

In New York, life is rather different. Such cameras are few and far between, and a good job too, in most people's books. The only camera likely to capture your image 300 times a day is owned by an over-excited Japanese tourist. But that is about to change - New York, say "cheese" and get ready for your close-up.

The NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg has just announced plans to spend more than $8m on installing more than 500 cameras in locations across the city. Not only that, but it is looking for close to $100m to throw its own "ring of steel" around Wall Street. Modelled on the UK version in the City, police want to rig up a system which will photograph every car and person crossing south of Chambers Street, where the low rise brownstone houses of Greenwich Village and SoHo give way to the skyscraping glass temples to commerce.

The NYPD has no comprehensive system to monitor the Financial District - considered the nation's number one terror target - and a team of five NYPD experts visited London in September to get a look at the "ring of steel", such as it is.

The City and lower Manhattan share a number of characteristics. Both neighbourhoods are about a square mile in area. Some 300,000 commuters travel through each daily. Both are global financial hubs, with banks and stock exchanges that remain targets for terrorist attacks.

The people, though, are different, and in Gotham, where Wall Streeters are already feeling the heat of aggressive regulation elsewhere in their lives, they don't seem to appreciate the opportunity for a few more Kodak moments.

Leading the charge, as always, is the American Civil Liberties Union, who don't much care for the argument that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. They believe the attacks of September 11 have led to a crisis in civil liberties, with "national security" being used to hide a multitude of sins.

For Ring of Steel, read Iron Curtain, is the general opinion of the scheme's critics. But, with the cameras and controlled entrances surrounding whatever eventually replaces the World Trade Centre, the battle is going to take on a particular poignancy. Expect lawsuits at dawn.

If nothing else, it will at least keep the courts busy. You may think that, in the US, such a thing was hardly a problem. With some of the more frivolous lawsuits making the headlines, you'd think there was plenty to keep their honours occupied. It seems barely a week can go by without someone suing McDonald's for making them fat, or slapping a lawsuit on Starbucks for making their coffee too hot.

In a particularly bizarre case last week, a man from California was incensed when a council-owned dump truck crashed into his car. He decided to sue the driver of the dump truck.

The snag? He was the driver. A lesser person may have considered this an insurmountable hurdle, but not our intrepid hero. He wasn't one to let such a minor technicality set him back, and filed suit against himself, hoping he could prove the council negligent - presumably for hiring someone so incompetent that he can't get through the day without crashing his two vehicles into one another.

So you'd think the US justice system had more than enough to be getting along with. You would, of course, be wrong. The New York City small claims court is begging for more business. With the number of suits filed annually down by half over the past decade, from 60,000 in 1995 to just 32,000 last year, too many of the clerks are idly twiddling their thumbs.

But before you applaud a sudden outbreak of common sense, consider that it's probably more likely that the small claims court is just no longer as enticing for potential litigants - most are looking for closer to $2m payouts rather than the maximum $5,000 that the small claims court can provide. A reasonable sum but hardly winning the lottery.

Chief clerk Joseph Gebbia is rather alarmed and wants New York to embrace its favourite pastime all over again. "We'd like to build the numbers back up," he said. "We have the capacity to do a lot more and we'd like to see people take advantage of that." All potential litigants have to do is go down to the court, fill in a form saying who they want to sue, and pay a fee of up to $20.

"It's one of New York's best bargains,' Gebbia says.

Quite right. Although, then again, only if you win.

[Soldier4Christ]

Advocates Push Troubled Program
Some say banning vouchers threatens Bright Futures, McKay programs.


TALLAHASSEE -- Hoping to mobilize support to protect vouchers, proponents of the now-unconstitutional Opportunity Scholarship Program have warned that the American Civil Liberties Union and others will attempt to kill some of the state's most popular educational plans unless lawmakers act.

Not likely, said an ACLU lobbyist earlier this month, though he said the group is still considering legal action against the state's new pre-kindergarten program.

Pro-voucher politicians, including Gov. Jeb Bush, have said the ACLU won't be satisfied with the Florida Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year that ended the OSP. That program gave about 700 students in failing public schools taxpayer money to attend private schools.

The court did not rule on the ACLU's concerns that the program unconstitutionally used public money to send children to church-based schools. Instead, it said the program was unconstitutional since it created a separate education system that didn't meet the same standards as public schools, such as requirements to take the FCAT standardized test.

Voucher proponents say popular programs like Bright Futures, which allows Florida college students to use money to attend public and faith-based colleges, and the McKay Scholarship plan that allows students with special needs to attend church-run schools would also be in jeopardy unless the constitution is changed.

But ACLU lobbyist Larry Spalding said earlier this month that the group has no intentions of challenging either the McKay or Bright Futures programs. That drew an angry challenge from John Kirtley, a Tampa millionaire who has championed vouchers.

"I think that's a ruse," Kirtley said. "They sued on the OSP program because they said money flowing to faith-based providers of K-12 education violates" the constitution.

He said the ACLU's claim that the OSP was unconstitutional while ignoring other programs that allow state money to go to faith-based schools or colleges was "intellectually dishonest."

Spalding said OSP was different from Bright Futures and the McKay program. He said Bright Futures students are adults voluntarily choosing options and aren't required to attend school like K-12 students. And he said McKay addresses students with unique needs that can't be served in public schools.

Kirtley said that's disingenuous and accused the ACLU of waiting until after a possible vote on a constitutional change this November to get involved, rather than becoming a lightning rod for voucher opponents to rally support. Spalding agrees an ACLU suit would draw flak.

"If we go that route, then we're going to be the target," Spalding said.

Voters in 2002 chose to require the state to provide a fully funded option for 4-year-olds to attend pre-kindergarten classes. The state opted to pay private schools, including church-run facilities, to teach some of the participating students.

Spalding said the lack of a public school alternative makes the pre-K program a more blatant violation of the constitutional ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for religious uses.

"On the church-state issue, pre-K is worse," Spalding said.

ACLU officials sent a letter to legislative leaders last year threatening legal woes if the

pre-K plan allowed faith-based providers. Asked why the ACLU hasn't legally challenged the

pre-K program that is now nearly a year old, Spalding said the issue was still being studied. The ACLU sued the state immediately after the OSP was put in place. Tens of thousands of children and their families are now enrolled in the pre-K program.

Even lawmakers who have mixed feelings about vouchers feel programs like pre-K, McKay and Bright Futures may be left vulnerable to legal attacks unless lawmakers act.

"If we don't do something this year," King said, the ACLU or another group "could bring the whole process of vouchers to an end."

There seems to be sufficient legislative support this year to change the law so that most of the students currently in the OSP program could receive the corporate vouchers to maintain attendance at their current schools.

But Bush and others feel the constitution must be changed to not only resurrect OSP, but protect the corporate voucher plan and the McKay Scholarships.

The Florida House concurs, but the Senate has yet to even consider such a constitutional remedy, which would need a threefifths majority approval in the House and Senate before facing a statewide vote in November.

Senate Education Committee chairwoman Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, said that three weeks into this year's two-monthlong session, she has yet to see any such proposals in the Senate.

"If someone wanted to do the bill or have the bill, it would be floating around somewhere, and I haven't seen it," she said.

King said it's been difficult to get a majority of senators to back vouchers in the past, and the Supreme Court decision has only added to their reticence.

"I'm not so sure that the Senate in particular is that eager to jump into waters that they know now are tested," he said.

King is pushing legislation that would enact stricter rules on private schools accepting voucher students. Whether that would be sufficient to meet the Supreme Court's concerns is unknown.

It's a sign of the new defensive posture among advocates of school choice that OSP, once touted as an integral part of revamping education, is now portrayed as a tiny experiment.

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU Teaching Children How To Be Good Criminals


If there is one thing that American needs more of, especially our children, it is to learn how to take responsibility for our actions and to realize that our actions have consequences. The ACLU are working hard to teach our children just the opposite. When they are not teaching our children that abstinence is harmful, abortion shouldn’t require parental consent, the Bible is the enemy, teachers that pray are like terrorists, or fighting away the military recruiters, they may be teaching them how to keep their drugs well hidden from authorities.

    Students crowded 107 Keith Hall Thursday night to learn how to properly respond to and protect their rights in case of police contact. Indiana Voices for Peace hosted “Busted: A Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters,” which consisted of a short ACLU video and a question and answer session with two representatives from Pittsburgh’s chapter of the ACLU.

    Jeff Burk (senior, political science), vice president of Indiana Voices for Peace, explained the purpose of holding the event before playing the video.

    “The cops in this area are starting to get pretty aggressive,” he said. “We’re hoping that students will get a better understanding of what their basic rights are.”

Now before you libertarians jump down my throat, this isn’t about rights. I have no problem with the ACLU informing students of their fourth amendment, and miranda rights not to incriminate themselves, but take notice of what the ACLU are not saying, and what they are advocating. They go beyond teaching basic rights and into the realm of evasion.

In one segment of an ACLU video they showed students how to avoid being caught with marijuana in the trunk by “asserting their rights.” This one wasn’t the big deal with me, despite the fact that the best way not to get busted with marijuana is to not have possession of it. The ACLU offered no offered no discouragement there whatsover. Instead of teaching the kids to avoid being busted for something illegal, they taught the kids how to be to get away with criminal activity.

What this amounts to is an indoctrination of irresponsibility, and it a mentality that is hurting our country. My friend Gribbit described it a few days ago when talking about the ACLU’s view towards abstinence.

    This is akin to telling your child not to shop lift but if they are going to anyway to not get caught. Then teaching them methods on not getting caught as opposed to teaching them to just plain not do it.

Except in this case it isn’t just akin, it is exactly what they are doing.

Now, here is where I really started having a problem….

    The video also showed a segment where a young woman hosting a party got herself into a world of trouble when a guest allowed police to enter her home and find drug paraphernalia.

    According to the ACLU video, however, “getting busted is no party.”

    They suggested a number of ways the young woman in the video, and viewers, could protect herself from a police violation of her rights. The ACLU recommended that partiers:

    - Know who is at the party and what they are doing.

    - Keep paraphernalia and other illegal articles out of view of police.

Lets stop right there for a moment. Notice that the ACLU did not suggest the best method to keep out of trouble at a party; obeying the law. Instead they told the kids to keep their drug paraphernailia well hidden, in essense not only condoning the criminal activity of possessing it, but also of concealing it. They go on to even offer suggestions on how to do so.

    Attorney Paul Berks and criminal defense lawyer Tom Farrell spoke briefly after the video and fielded questions from the audience. Berks said that police are able to search your house or car if they have “probable cause,” like detecting the odor of substances. “Shut the windows, lock the door, he said, “or your ability to keep them out is diminished.”

Teaching our children their individual rights is a good thing, however rights standing alone do not make up for a free society. Our primary focus should be teaching our children responsibility, and certainly not how to avoid it. Individual rights can not exist in a social vacuum. Any legitimate discussion of freedom must start with society, not the individual. The most important part of this discussion must start with what kind of social order is best suited to maintain the establishment of liberty. The proper exercise of rights is limited by the moral boundaries of society, otherwise known as laws.

Only morally responsible individuals are capable of exercising their rights in a way that is truly liberating, and this magnifies into society. Morally irresponsible individuals do not use rights, they abuse them, which unavoidably leads to others losing their rights in the process. The social order that is best suited to the establishment of liberty is one that respects a balance between the social authority of mediating institutions and the rights of individuals.

The primary focus our children should be learning is how to live responsibly within society. Self restraint should be the most desirable characteristic of an individual within a free society. Either people police themselves or the police will do it for them. The only alternative to those two choices is anarchy, which is not an option in a society that wants to be free. A society that fails to encourage a strong sense of responsibility in its citizens is one that is not prepared to distribute rights to individuals. Without the responsibility, liberty crumbles.

So remember people, the best way to avoid getting busted by the authorities is to do the responsible thing…not break the law. And the best way to avoid responsibility is to call the ACLU. With all the terrorists they are defending they are sure to find some kind of loop hole for a measly bag of grass.

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU vs. Seattle Smoking Ban

Seattlest posted a lament recently about the unexpected down-side to the new indoor smoking ban, specifically our newly rediscovered sense of smell. Where is the justice in prohibiting one foul odor only to open the floodgates to lesser noxious fumes? Apparently, the champions of freedom at the ACLU read Seattlest, as they have now seized this historic opportunity to answer the call to justice (from their recent news alert):

    Religious exemption to the Clean Indoor Air Act SB 6213, HB 2652

    Position: Support

    Status: Did not pass

    In November 2005, the voters overwhelming [sic] approved a statewide smoking ban. Unfortunately, the drafters of the initiative did not consider the impact the ban would have on certain religious rituals. A number of religions incorporate smoke or smoking in their ceremonies. The smoking ban unconstitutionally prohibits these practices. These bills would have simply inserted a religious exemption into the Clean Indoor Air Act to make the statute constitutional. We had strong support from a number of legislators. However, the bills did not pass due to the concern that the change would be interpreted as a reversal of the initiative and a rejection of the "will of the people." We will continue to work on this issue in different arenas, and we may seek to pass this legislation next year if it is still needed.

[Soldier4Christ]

This article was taken from the ACLU website.

___________________________


ACLU Applauds Defeat of Abortion Ban in Mississippi

Says Bill Would Have Endangered Women’s Health and Lives

JACKSON, MS -- The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the defeat of a dangerous and extreme abortion ban late last night in the Mississippi legislature.
 
“This extreme abortion ban would have threatened the health and lives of women across this state,” said Nsombi Lambright, Executive Director of the ACLU of Mississippi.  “This is a great victory for the women of Mississippi and speaks to an active and growing pro-choice voice in the state that is fighting to ensure that all women can access the reproductive health care they need.”

The ban, which Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said he would have signed into law had it passed, came only weeks after a similar abortion ban became law in South Dakota.  Last week, advocates for women’s health in South Dakota launched a grassroots campaign to repeal that measure at the polls in November.

“History has shown us that when women are denied access to abortion they may resort to desperate measures,” said Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.  “The women of Mississippi would be better served if the legislature would focus on commonsense solutions aimed at reducing unintended pregnancy such as funding medically accurate sex education and ensuring access to birth control, including emergency contraception.”

The bill, which failed to pass last night after Senate and House negotiators were unable to reach an agreement, would have outlawed abortion in Mississippi, a state that is already failing when it comes to protecting access to reproductive health care.  Ninety-eight percent of counties in the state are without an abortion provider, and in a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, Mississippi ranked 30th in the nation in its efforts to help women avoid unintended pregnancy.

Similar bans on abortion are still pending in eight states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

[Shammu]

Rhode Island Boots Abstinence-Only Sex Ed from Classrooms

By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
March 28, 2006

(AgapePress) - Rhode Island has dumped a federal education program that encourages young people to abstain from sexual activity and other risky behaviors. The state's education officials are being accused of caving in to the demands of the ACLU.

The Rhode Island Department of Education has ordered public schools to no longer work with Heritage of Rhode Island and to stop using its federally funded sex-education program. The directive came after the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claimed curriculum from the abstinence-education provider "endorsed particular religious views ... invaded students' privacy rights" and "promoted sexist stereotypes."

In a press release about the Department's decision, the Rhode Island ACLU stated it was pleased with the state's response to "inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars to support discriminatory and religious teachings" in public schools. The ACLU chapter's executive director, Steven Brown, said that "students deserve facts, not sexism, in their sex-ed classes."

The program at issue is an abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum called "Right Time, Right Place," which, according to Heritage, is a "character-based family-life and sexuality program" designed to work within a school's already existing curriculum. Chris Plante, executive director at Heritage, says state education officials sided with the ACLU without even formally reviewing the curriculum.

"There is not a religious bent to this program," Plante claims. "For us, and particularly because we work in Rhode Island where we know that the faith community sees the religious or the spiritual necessity of this type of program, we work hand-in-hand [with that community] producing a public health message here. But, unfortunately, perception is the reality these days."

This is not the first time Heritage and the ACLU have locked horns. Last year the ACLU protested a textbook once used by Heritage that taught students that girls should wear clothing that does not invite "lustful thoughts from boys." The book was also criticized for referring to men as "strong" and "courageous," and for calling women "caring." Plante maintains that instead of teaching young people they are responsible for their actions, the ACLU would rather wage a campaign against modesty and sexual purity.

"Politically, here in Rhode Island, those terms and things like that are considered gender-biased," acknowledges Plante. "Heritage of Rhode Island pulled that textbook simply because we wanted no obstacle between our message that abstinence from all forms of sexual activity as an adolescent is the healthiest choice an adolescent can make."

Plante says that last September, the ACLU began a concerted nationwide "attack" on abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs. That nationwide campaign, known as "Not in My State," involved ACLU affiliates in 18 states calling on local officials to keep what it calls "unsafe" abstinence-only-until-marriage programs out of public school classrooms, claiming they are "medically inaccurate and discriminatory."

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU set to appeal 'Choose Life' tags

Proponents say plates shouldn't be delayed

Despite a federal appeals court ruling this month that lets Tennessee put "Choose Life" on license plates, it isn't clear when — or even if — the tags will ever hit the road.

The American Civil Liberties Union is likely to appeal to the full panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, said yesterday.

The further delay in getting the plates on the road — which has been three years in the making — frustrates one anti-abortion lawmaker.

Tennessee should not let the ACLU and other groups hold the plates hostage, said state Rep. Glen Casada, R-College Grove.

"They're playing it too safe," Casada said. "Just because there's a chance for appeals, there is no reason to stop what the 6th Circuit said was OK to do. … It's time to move forward."

In fact, Casada said he has been under the impression that the plates would be for sale soon with the favorable ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit.

"It's unfortunate some people thought production of the plates was under way," Weinberg said. "There's another step to take." The ACLU expects to decide either today or tomorrow which court to appeal in, she said.

The tags, supported by the Tennessee Right to Life organization, have been on hold since the legislature approved them three years ago because of the legal challenge by ACLU and Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee.

Melanie Harsson of Antioch, who was at Capitol Hill this week for a lobbying effort called "Pro-Life-Woman's Day on the Hill," said she thought the lawsuit was backfiring on the two groups because all the publicity was helping get the word out about issues surrounding abortion.

"It's increasing awareness all over Middle Tennessee and West and East Tennessee, too," she said. More people than ever will want the license plates because of the lawsuit, she said.

Michelle Tassart with Tennessee Right to Life called the lawsuit frivolous. The fact that her organization, and others, fought the legal complaint showed the resolve held by those who fight to make abortion illegal, she said. "We've shown that we won't be silenced," Tassart said.

The ACLU and other plaintiffs have until tomorrow to file an appeal for a hearing before the 6th Circuit. They would have another week to ask judges to keep a court order in place that prohibits the state from making the "Choose Life" plates, Weinberg said.

The state Safety Department will not manufacture the plates until the court order is lifted and the legal matter is resolved, said Julie Oaks, spokeswoman for the Department of Safety, which runs the state license plate office.

Once that happens, and if the courts uphold the tags as constitutional, it would still be at least two months until the plates could be sold at county clerk offices, Oaks said. During those 60 days, the plates would be produced and the approximately 1,200 people who preordered them would be contacted, she said.

In the March 17 ruling, the three-member appeals panel said Tennessee would be within its rights to issue the "Choose Life" plates while denying a plate encouraging abortion rights.

While one-sidedness may be "ill-advised" on politically charged issues like abortion, the court ruled that there's nothing in the First Amendment to stop it.

The ACLU was disappointed, saying the ruling allows Tennessee to use state dollars to promote one viewpoint while silencing another. Two amendments to create a pro-choice plate have failed.

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU Rep Calls Smut Actions "Ridiculous"

The American Civil Liberties Union lobbyists have been talking to Senators, trying to dissuade them from moving forward with a bill that would boost FCC indecency fines dramatically. "We have been lobbying against it. We are opposed to it, and we are trying to stop it, ACLU legislative counsel Marv Johnson tells B&C.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has said recently he wants to finally move a Senate version of a similar House bill that passed over a year ago.

While the ACLU has not commented publicy on the FCC's recent indecency enforcement actions proposing over $3 million in fines against CBS stations, among others, Johnson calls them "ridiculous" and says that he thought they made a broadcaster court challenge more likely, particularly as the fine amounts mount. He said the ACLU would likely join such a suit as counsel, or at least file a supporting brief.

The just-proposed fines against CBS' Without a Trace could have topped $30 million under Congress' proposed fine boost of as much as 10 times the current $32,500 maximum per incident. That is enough to make it more than simply the cost of business for broadcasters not looking to anger Washington.

ACLU takes issue with the suggestion that the number of indecency complaints has dramatically increased, which some FCC commissioners have pointed to as something of a mandate for stepped-up enforcement.

Johnson points out that while the FCC used to count numerous complaints from one group--say, members of the Parents Television Council--as one complaint, it changed its methodology to count them individually (in part because PTC complained it was being undercounted). That means yesterday's single complaint would today be a hundred thousand.

"What they are trying to do is make the indecency problem as big an issue as possible," says Johnson.

[Soldier4Christ]

ACLU’s Hypocritical Approach To Church And State
by Jay on 03-30-06 @ 11:10 pm Filed under ACLU, Church And State, War On Terror, News

Liberals proudly beam about how the ACLU keeps America safe from becoming a theocracy by dilegently keeping “church and state” seperated through endless lawsuits. I don’t believe that the founders of our country meant for the First Amendment to be bent to the shape the ACLU has put it into, but there is definitely a line between religion and the government that needs to be drawn.

In Bridgeport West Virginia, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer has asked a West Virginia high school to remove a picture of Jesus Christ that has hung at the school for 40 years. I won’t argue argue against the point that a highschool is really not an appropriate place for the picture, and I’ll even concede that the ACLU will probably win this case, but it most definitely is not a threat. And when voluntary acedemic classes on the Bible are offered at a school, you can bet the ACLU will be keeping a watchful eye. While I have my apprehensions with the ACLU on this , no one wants our children to be indoctrinated.

While there are grey areas, where we can all debate these controversial issues, there should not be a double standard. When it comes to Christianity in the public schools, the ACLU’s outcry can be heard the loudest. When it is Islam in the public schools, the ACLU’s silence speaks volumes.

    According to the Thomas More Law Center, for three weeks, “impressionable 12-year-old students” were, among other things, placed into Islamic city groups; took Islamic names; wore identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the star and crescent moon; handed materials that instructed them to ‘Remember Allah always so that you may prosper’; completed the Islamic Five Pillars of Faith, including fasting; and memorized and recited the ‘Bismillah’ or ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,’ which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.

    Students also played “jihad games” during the course, which was part of the school’s world history and geography program.

The ACLU were completely silent on this one. This isn’t suprising, since a alleged senior terrorist operative, Abdurahman Alamoudi helped the ACLU write their religion-in-the-classroom guidelines.

In 2004, the ACLU won a hard fought lawsuit to remove a cross from the Mohave Desert public preserve.

    In the case, Peter Eliasberg, an attorney at the ACLU stated, “The federal government should not offer public land – owned collectively by people of every faith and of no faith – as a site for the advertisement and promotion of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Pope John Paul II, or any other particular religious figure. Contrary to what some believe, it is not the role of the federal government to advance Christianity or any other sectarian belief.” He further stated, “The courts have consistently held that a permanent religious fixture on federal land is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.”

However, it looks like the ACLU may be eating those words when the religion is Islam.

Hillel Stavis writes at Frontpage Magazine:

    Now imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find anyone – either at the Massachusetts ACLU – or at its big brother in Washington who had brought legal action – or who would even render an opinion - on the construction of a $22,000,000 religious structure on land virtually given away by the city of Boston and attendant religious instruction courses forced on a nearby state-funded college. How could such a monumental religious undertaking involving the obvious endorsement by government officials at every level escape the withering gaze of the watchdogs of the ACLU?

    It took only a few phone calls to find the answer. The religious structure and institution was neither a church nor a synagogue. It was a mosque. And not just another mosque. The Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque project will be the largest on the east coast of the United States and will be funded primarily through Middle East emirate money.

    Not content with support pledged by Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, the ISB sought to purchase the city-owned land at a bargain basement price. And did they ever succeed. The City of Boston obliged the group by selling its 1.9 acre site valued at $2,000,000 for $175,000. Boldly compounding the fraudulent conveyance part of the scam, the city agreed to receive further in-kind payment from the ISB in the form of an Islamic Library and courses in Islamic instruction at a state facility, Roxbury Community College; not a $200 crèche or a menorah made of scrap tubing, but a multi-million dollar enterprise based on defrauding taxpayers and establishing ongoing indoctrination courses on the glories of Islam. Not only did this enterprise represent “inherent religious activity”, but it went far beyond the ACLU’s floor for triggering action by involving explicit and manifold religious activity.

   cont'd in next post

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Two

 If, as de Rochefoucault had it, “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”, the ACLU has to be first in line at that altar. Carol Rose, Director of the Massachusetts ACLU, told me in 2004, in response to a private lawsuit brought by an individual based on violation of the establishment clause, that her organization favored the ISB’s position insofar as the lawsuit “violated that organization’s right of free speech.” After I put my dropped jaw back into place, I suggested that a $22,000,000 mosque built on giveaway city land along with taxpayer funded Islamic indoctrination amounted to a textbook case of Establishment Clause transgression and made the crèche case look like a minor infraction. At that point she terminated the conversation.

Go read the whole controversy, including how…

    one of the founders of the ISB, Abdul Rachman Alamoudi is doing a stretch in a federal prison for receiving cash from the Libyan mission to the United Nations, failing to disclose numerous trips to Libya and conspiring in a political assassination. He has also expressed his support for Hamas, along with Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.

If that isn’t enough to get your blood pressure boiling, maybe this is.

    North Liberty, Iowa. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has signed a lease for up to 25 years with a group that wants to build a Muslim youth camp at Lake Coralville.

    The lease allows the Cedar Rapids-based Muslim Youth Camps of America to build on 114 acres of federal land. Construction can start once the group works out details with county and state regulators, the corps said Wednesday.

    Plans for the $934,000 camp north of North Liberty call for lodging up to 60 campers ages 10 to 17 in cabins and tents plus staffers during the summer and up to 40 per night in the offseason. When completed, the camp will include a 2,400 square-foot lodge, a beach, recreation trails, five cabins, five tent pods and a bathroom.

Bill Aossey, Representative for MYCA, announced that the camp/convention center “has been purchased and given the name ‘Camp Heritage’ to emphasize the importance for Muslim children of understanding their roots.”

    These statements, including the fact that the proposed site will contain of a 36-foot dome-covered prayer tower, has not fazed the ACLU. Concerning the matter, the ICLU, the Iowa branch of the ACLU (who in March of 2000 condemned a proposal by 12 legislators to require posting of the Ten Commandments in the Iowa State Senate chamber) had this to say: “There is no establishment clause violation in government permitting the building of a structure that resembles a mosque or church…we are unaware of any cases involving governmental religious displays based on the theory that certain public architecture is an endorsement of one religion over another…this is not the case in which to try that argument out….”

If this doesn’t bother you enough, the Militant Islam Monitor points out even more disturbing details.

    Bill Aossey attends the Cedar Rapids Islamic Center. The website for the center contains numerous extremist and hate links, including a link to Al Haramain, the foundation that was one of the “principal players in charity-based financing of al-Qaeda” (December 20, 2002, National Review On-Line).

    Bill was a featured speaker at the 2002 and 2003 Iowa Muslim Student Association Annual Conferences. At the 2002 Conference, he gave a speech entitled “Martyrdom in Islam.” Martyrdom is considered a code word for suicide bombings. Also speaking at the 2002 Conference was Siraj Wahhaj, an individual that is alleged to have been a co-conspirator of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. At the 2003 Conference, Bill was joined by feature speaker Nihad Awad. Awad is the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and an ex-member of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a front group for the terrorist organization Hamas. It has been reported that MYCA plans to rent out its proposed convention center in the off-season. Is it possible that the 2004 Conference will be held there?

    Judgement day for the final decision on the camp/conference center is set for Friday, July 11. According to the Daily Iowan, “Authority to approve or reject the camp proposal lies with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers…The decision to build or not to build falls squarely on Col. William Bayles’ shoulders.”

    Jalel Aossey, Bill’s son, who is listed on the Iowa Secretary of State Corporate Registry as the Registered Agent for MYCA, says that this would be the first Muslim camp in the United States to lease federal land, and that he envisions the camp as the first in a nationwide network. Will Col. Bayles give in to this vision of federally provided camps with radical connections or will he exercise restraint? I don’t know what his answer will be, but I do know which way I would vote.

Ahhh, no wonder the ACLU doesn’t have a problem with any of this. The ACLU’s hypocrisy on the issue of seperation of church and state should be a wake up call for any concerned American. One thing that can be said of the ACLU is that they are consistent. If there is a picture of Jesus in a school, or a voluntary prayer at a graduation cermeony the ACLU will be screaming that a theocracy is threatening our democracy, but when possible terrorist ties are involved and the threat may be real….you can count on the ACLU’s support. Would someone please investigate the ACLU?

[Soldier4Christ]

I've already posted about this law suit but this post contains the actual poem in question.

_________________


ACLU sues Murray schools over student expelled for poem
by Jay on 03-31-06 @ 4:07 pm Filed under ACLU

I keep getting emails about this one. I’ve been meaning to post about it.

    ROME, GA (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Murray County schools for expelling an eighth-grader for writing a poem on school violence.

    The student, whose name was not released, was suspended and expelled last year after he showed a notebook full of poems to his English teacher, according to an ACLU statement.

    The statement said several students and another teacher “read the poem without incident, all commenting on his creativity and none believing the poem to be threatening.”

    The student was indefinitely suspended from the school and later was barred from attending any school in the district for the rest of the school year. Officials also filed an action against him in juvenile court that claimed he made criminal “terroristic threats,” the ACLU said.

    “Kids are being raised in a society where there are violent images around them, not just in movies but in the news,” said ACLU attorney Beth Littrell. “Their writing may reflect that and the school should not be punishing them for their creative expression unless it’s truly threatening.”

    Murray County School District has not yet received the lawsuit, said Dean Donehoo, director of administrative services. Donehoo declined to comment until the lawsuit has been reviewed by the school district’s attorneys.

A reader emails the poem in question to me.

    This is the poem:
    Something bad is going to happen at school,

    Maybe not to you, maybe to Loni,

    I’m not very sure, but I know it’ll haunt me

    For the rest of my life and for the rest of my days,

    all I will see is a red bloody haze.

    From Death to Desire,

    I have to find a heart that I truely addmire.

    From blondes to brunets, reds and browns,

    their screams provide me with a crisp, clean sound.

    I live in horror, terror and fear

    I feel like I must do something like Paul Reveare.

    I hear guns go off, bodies drop

    I just wish this little game would stop.

    Your heart beats, Your goin in shock,

    you reach for the glock but tha music stops …

Another reader emails:

    Please take a look at these attachments.My daughter is Loni,the girl mentioned in the poem.
    What are her rights?It seems like the boy who wrote the poem is the only one who has rights.They never mentioned his name but my daughter’s is there in black & white.By the way,she is still a minor
    Thanks,
    Cindy (last name removed for privacy concerns)

That certainly sounds threatening to me. Imagine if the school did NOT act on this poem, and the student in question did manage to harm Loni. The lawsuits against the school, very possibly aided by the ACLU, would fly fast and furious.

Allegations of the schools failure to protect the student from “a reasonably foreseen event” would crawl through the legal system, while the school defended its’ position of not taking action for fear of trampling on the First Amendment Rights of the student that wrote the poem, in the meantime Loni, and anyone else that may have gotten in the way of this student during his “exercise of his First Amendment Rights” would be, at the least, damaged for life.

This is a no win situation for the school, and erring on the side of caution, and in favor of protecting a student, was the correct course of action.

[Soldier4Christ]

Lt. gov won't budge on grave-protest bill

SPRINGFIELD -- An end-of-session brawl over funeral protests continues to mount as Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn begins a public support campaign to prevent his legislation from dying in the state Senate.

Quinn on Friday unveiled a Web site that urges people to sign a petition to prohibit funeral demonstrations. The legislation has stalled in the Senate as lawmakers grapple with an exemption for cemetery labor picketing.

"We're not going to accept any watered-down, poorly drafted version," Quinn said. "If the Senate won't budge, then the people will act."

Quinn's proposal outlaws protests within 200 feet of a funeral during the ceremony and 30 minutes before and after it. The legislation came about after a series of disruptions at Illinois military funerals by a fundamentalist Kansas church.

The state House passed Quinn's version of the bill last month with little legislative opposition. While the legislation sat in the Senate Rules Committee, Sen. Arthur Wilhelmi (D-Crest Hill) proposed his own version with the labor picketing exception.

Union wants exemption

The Service Employees International Union says the exemption is needed so cemetery workers can protest at their job sites. The American Civil Liberties Union also opposes the bill on First Amendment concerns.

"What I'm trying to do is balance the issues -- the veterans issue and the rights of working men and women," Wilhelmi said. "My goal is to bring all the parties together and work out a compromise that will be a win-win for everyone involved."

But that seems unlikely to happen before next Friday's expected session adjournment date.

Quinn and state Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-Norris City), House sponsor of the original bill, say the amended version would be ruled unconstitutional because the law would not apply to everyone.

Both men are hoping public support will help propel their legislation through the Senate. Both legislative chambers must agree on the bill before it can head to the governor.

"We should not put politics above patriotism," Quinn said. "We're going to get that law passed -- whatever it takes."