
   Supporting the right for "White Supreamists" to march and
   protest, and assemble peaceably. This includes the right
   to speak their message of hate, free from forceful
   censure. I DO NOT want neo-Nazis marching around speaking
   hate about "The Jew" and "The Black" and "The Catholic,"
   but I am glad the ACLU has the guts to defend THEIR RIGHT
   TO DO SO. All citizens have unalienable rights: the
   Constitution specifically recognizes some, and the rights
   it does not mention specifically it covers with a blanket
   statement that "other rights" are held by the citizenry.
   If the ACLU failed to support the KKK and other neo-Nazis
   in their right to demonstrate, their whole precept of
   LIBERTY TO ALL would have been violated. I understand very
   well how hard this must have been for many ACLU members:
   it cost the ACLU a =huge= amount of support because many
   contributors refused to support the ACLU afterwards. My
   personal opinion is that the members who left the ACLU
   because of the neo-Nazi issue UTTERLY FAILED to understand
   just what was at stake: the ACLU is predicated upon the
   belief that restricting one group's rights in harmful to
   ALL OTHER groups--- it sets a VERY dangerous precident.

   Another case of ACLU support I strongly dissagreed with
   was a woman's religious right to place her very late-
   term pregnancy in danger. The woman could not give birth
   naturally, due to health complications, and a C-section
   was proscribed by the attending physician. She refused
   upon religious grounds. A court order was obtained to
   force the woman to have a C-section. She appealed that
   the order violated her Constitutionally recognized right
   to religious expression. The ACLU supported that right,
   and fought the court order.

Liberty is not a black/white issue. The ACLU fights many
of the violations of state/church neutrality it finds:
doing so PROTECTS the citizen's religious liberty.

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 * OFFLINE 1.58 * The more one knows, the less one believes.

