The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his081/aclu.lzh/ACLU.TXT

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WAR:ACLU - One of the Most Harmful Organizations in America  by Tim LaHaye     (author, minister, lecturer)

   Ever since it was reported that Governor Michael Dukakis admitted
that he "was a card-carrying member of the ACLU," (1) I have been
besiged by the question, "What is the ACLU and what does it stand for?"
For over 35 years I have carefully observed the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) and have watched it attack almost every
traditional value in this country. Years ago I came to believe it was
one of the most harmful organizations in the history of America. I am
even more convinced of that today. The ACLU has caused the removal of
almost every traditional Judeo-Christian value from our nation's
schools and from public life and has contributed to the abortion
holocaust, pornography plague, and increase in child molestation.

   Some of their legal cases have handcuffed our police unitl crime is
so rampant that our public streets are no longer safe after dark. They
have attacked pornography laws unitl the U.S. has become the porn
capital of the world.

   Among the 250,000 members of the ACLU, there are nearly 5,000
activist lawyers. It is comprised of 300 local chapters, one in every
state of the Union. (Many liberal law firms supply volunteer defense
attorneys, who handle approximately 6,000 ACLU cased each year.) No
organization has done more to turn the original meaning of the First
Amendment upside down!

   The Union is well organized and well finance. It has received
considerable funding from the Playboy Foundation, along with the
Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations. The Playboy Foundation has
generously supported the ACLU and provides leadership. Both Burton
Joseph, President of the Playboy Foundation, and Christy Hefner,
daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner,    have served on the Illinois
Civil Liberties Union board of directors.(2)

   This, of course, is consistent with its long history of fighting
laws that oppose pornography. It is safe to say that, had there been no
ACLU these pase 68 years, America today would be a better and safer
place to live. From their own official statements and actions that
following facts and policies will tell you what you and your friends
need to know about this influential organization.

   THE BACKGROUND OF THE A C L U

   The ACLU was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, "a Communist
sympathizer, a self-avowed soldier in the march of socialism."(3)

       Although Baldwin himself was never identified as a card-carrying
Communist, members of his first board of directors were: Max Eastman
was editor of a Communist newspaper, The Masses: William Z. Foster
later became president of the U.S. Communist Party; and Helen Gurley
Flynn was long associated with the Daily Worker. Baldwin himself, in
his 30th Renion Harvard Classbook, wrote: "I am for socialism,
disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an
instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of
property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by
those who produce wealth. Communisum is the goal."(4)

   The California Senate Fact Finding Committee on un-American
Activities stated that "the ACLU may be definitely classified as a
Communist front or transmission belt organization."(5) A Special House
Investigative Committee has said, "....fully 90% of its effors are on
behald of Communists who have come into conflict with the law."(6)

   During the 40's the ACLU tried to rid itself of the Pro-Communist
label and, amoung other things, ousted Communist board member Helen
Gurley Flynn. (However, in 1976 she was "rehabilitated.") It has
opposed almost every effort of our government to halt the spread of
Communisum into other countries - - even in our own hemisphere. It has
all but eliminated "covert action" as an effective tool against
organized crime, making it difficult for agencies of our government to
defend against the spread of Communism inside our own country. In some
cases they have bound the CIA, FBI, and other agencies with so many
legal restrictions they have become almost ineffective in protecting
the security of this nation. One of their own members said:

   The ACLU opposes, and has fought in either Congress or the courts,
virtually all "covert action," most "clandestine intelligence"
gathering (i.e. spying), and in one case aid to an important U.S. ally
with a poor human rights record. The net effect of these efforts has
been to hinder U.S. opposition of Communist expansion. The ACLU may, at
some point, have undertaken some major initiative that advanced U.S.
interest and hindered Communist expansion, but our reserch never turned
one up and no ACLU leader ever mentioned one to us.(7)

   Further indication of the ACLU's attitude toward protecting the
security and future of America is seen in the following quotes:

   "Federal campaigan laws that requie political parties to disclose
the namess of their contributors violate constitutional guarantees of
privacy and freedom of association, the American Civil Liberties Union
charged today." Specifically, the ACLU was siding with the Socialist
Workers Party, a Communist organization dedicated to Leon Trotsky. (New
York Times, 9/12/74)

   The ACLU opposes as contrary to domocratic liberties any ban or
regulation which would prohibit the employment as a teacher of any
person solely because of his views or associations, such as Communists
or Fascists. (Academic Freedon and Academic Responsibility, published
by the ACLU, revised 1956)(8)

   HOSTILE OF CHRISTIANITY

   For years the ACLU has used its legal skills to attack religion in
general and Christianity in particular. Bill Murray, Madalyn Murray's
son who has become a Christian, is quoted as saying it was ACLU lawyers
who advised his mother in 1961 to file the suit that ultimatedly
started the snowball of secularization of our public schools - -
totally opposing 150 years of previous policy. This culminated in the
infamous Supreme Court decision of June 17, 1963, that has expelled the
recognition of God in school prayer, Bible reading, and ultimately any
moral values from the curriculum - - because they are based on
religion. At a time when children need to hear "just say no!" from
their public school teachers the ACLU has so intimidated many of these
teachers, they remain silent - - and one million teenage unwed girls
get pregnant each year.

   Even the teaching of history had to be falsified in our public
schools to accommodate, in part, ACLU intimidation. Dr. Paul Vitz'
exhaustive studies found that nearly 60% of our nations' schools
textbooks omitted even mentioning the religious roots of America in the
study of American history. Even the Great Awakening of 1738, without
which many historians believe there would have been no Declaration of
Independence or Revolutionary War, has been omitted. That is either
academic deception or ACLU intimidation.

   INFLUENCED BY INTIMIDATION

   All across the country, achool principals are intimidated by ACLU
lawyers, or the threat of their appearance, into excluding any mention
of Christmas or the religious nature of the holiday during the
Christmas celebrations.

   A measure of their hostitity is seen in a newspaper report:

   The display in public schools of Christmas cribs, nativity scenes or
other religious holiday symbols violates the constitutional separation
of church and state, the American Civil Liberties Union says. (Chicago
Sun-Times, 12/8/71)(9)

   The Illinois division of the ACLU admitted:

   We believe that the attention given to Christmas in the public
schools has often gone beyond what is legal and proper under our
Constitution and system of government ... The celebration of Christmas
as a religious holiday obviously has no place in the Illinois public
school. (Policy Statement on Christmas in the Public Schools, issued by
Illinois Division, ACLU.)(10)

   CHRISTMAS LOSING TO A C L U

   Richard and Susan Vigilante, both members of the ACLU, who think it
has gone way too far wrote:      If the ACLU is not hostile to religion,
the objective effect of its efforts has been to reduce the place of
religious speech in a way the ACLU would never allow other forms of
speech to be restricted. And on occasion the ACLU's scrupulous pursuit
of the separation of church and state has led it to the point of the
absurd.

   A perfect example is the ACLU's view of Christmas celebrations. Most
cities and towns in the United States give Christmas some kind of
public nod - - wreaths on office buildings, dir trees strewn with
colored lights, city sidewalks dressed in holiday style, silver bells,
and so on. But the in holiday style, silver bells, and so on. But the
ACLU is constantly vigilant lest these holiday celebrations violate the
establishment clause. In 1981 the Rhode Island affiliate of the ACLU
sued the City of Pawtucket to stop the display of the creche of the
Chiristmas nativity scene. The ACLU lost the cause this spring, when
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that portraying a historical event does
not constitute an establishment of religion. In 1979 the ACLU sued the
public schools of Sioux Falls, Iowa, to stop the singing of "Silent
Night" at the annual Christmas assemblies.

   The ACLU is relentless even outside the Christmas season.

   In Minnesota the organization sued a high school to force it to
cancel plans to have a prayer recited at its graduation ceremonies.
(The school backed down, as do many potential defendants faced with
ACLU lawyers.) In April 1982 the superintendent of a school district in
Spanaway, Washington, was lectured, if not threatened, by the local
ACLU chapter for permitting a high school to put on Jesus Christ,
Superstar as its spring play. The ACLU president informed him that
Bethel High School was "engaging in religious instruction," and that
"further violations of this kind may result in more direct and more
drastic action by the ACLU.(11)

   THEY DO NOT HATE ONLY PROTESTANTS

   Patrick Buchanan, a highly respected conservative columnist wrote,
"In recent decades the Supreme Court, responding to ACLU lawsuits, has
turned our First Amendent upside down."(12)

   While the ACLU protests that it only seeks to keep church and state
separate, its track record is that of an organization steeped in
anti-religious bigotry and motivated by an implacable hostility to
Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. As William
Donohue of the Heritage Foundation writes in the January issue of
Crisis, the "Anti-Catholic Liberties Union" has lately sought to:

   A. Deny tax-exempt status to all chruches and synagogues;

   B. Terminate all military and prison chaplains;

   C. Deny parochial school children access to publicly funded
counselors;

   D. Eliminate Nativity scenes from public property;

   E. Repeal all blue law statutes;

   F. Halt government funding of religious fostercare programs;

   G. Prohibit Bible reading in public schools even after school hours;

   H. Prevent the singing of "Silent Night", and posting of the Ten
Commandments in public school classrooms;

   I. End the practice of allowing public school children to leave
class to attend religious services;

   J. Halt public funding of buses for Catholic school children;

   K. Terminate all voucher programs and tuition tax credits;

   L. Prohibit census questions about religious affiliation;

   M. Purge the Words "In God We Trust" from our coins and "under God"
from our Plege of Allegiance.

   That is not a record of tolerance. While the ACLU contends its
lawsuits are simply upholding the First Amendment prohibition regarding
an "establishment of religion," their effect has been to confine and
constrict the "free exercise" of religion, as guaranteed by that
amendment.

   Clearly, the ACLU's purpose is nothing less that the de-
Christianization of the United States.(13)

   Unless an army of Christian activist attorneys is mobilized to
oppose these ACLU secularizers every time they try to use our courts to
remove all vestiges of God, moral values and religions freedom, this
nation's public policy will be as secular as the Soviet Union by the
year 2000.

   THREE MAJOR CHRITICISMS OF THE A C L U

   1. That many members of the organization are anti- religious, with
some carrying their hostility toward conservative religious
denominations to the point of bigotry; and that the organization itself
has sought to intimidate or penalize the exercise of religious belief;

   2. That in the sphere of social conduct the ACLU has gone beyond
advocating tolerance and now works to actively undermine traditional
moral standards;

   3. That in its foreign-policy cases the ACLU has consistently worked
to hamper U.S, efforts on contain Communism.(14)

   THE A C L U ASSAULT ON MORALITY

   The ACLU's lawsuits which hve weakened our laws against immoral acts
are legendary. consider some of the folowing...

   ABORTION: For more than a decade, the American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation has been the leading legal advocate of the right to obtain
safe and legal abortions and the only organization litigating
nationwide to fight restrictive abortion statutes and defending against
other threts to reproductive rights. (Abortion: A fundamental Right
Under Attack, publiches by the ACLU Foundation, 1981)

   The American Civil Liberties Union began distributing an abortion
law guidebook to nearly 17,000 obstetricians and gynecologists Friday.
(Chicago Sun-Times, 4/16/75)

   Something new has hit the auction block in America. On a recent
Sunday afternoon in New Orleans, it went to the highest bidder. For $30
and the slam of the auctioneer's gavel, they sold an abortion. The
abortion was sold by the American Civil Liberties Union at their
"Adventure Auction," an annual event to raise money for the ACLU's
Louisiana chapter. (Chicago Tribune, 6/22//77)(15)

   SODOMY: Twenty-four states still have sodomy laws, which criminalize
certain sexual acts, even by consenting adults in private. Except in
two states, these laws also apply to heterosexuals, but enforcement is
virtually limited to gay males. The ACLU, which helped get the laws
thrown out elsewhere, is continuing to challange the sodomy statutes in
the remaining states. (Civil Liberties in Regan's America, published by
ACLU, 1982)(16)

   PROSTITUTION: A Nevada house of prostitution will be investigated
for allegedly refusing to accept black customers, the executive
director of the Nevada Equal Rights commission siad Tuesday. The action
was initiated because a black resident of Tucson, Arizona, filed a
complaint with the ACLU. (Miami Herald, 2/16/72)(17)

   The greatest plague in the United States today is not AIDS, it is
pornography. It has destroyed more lives, marriages, and families,
brought more grief to children and caused a catastrophic increase in
child molestation more than any other single entity. Government reports
indicate that one out of every four girls has be molested by the time
she reaches 18 years of age. In most cases, print or video porn are the
culprits and the current permissive laws on pornography can be laid at
the door of the ACLU.

   Ann Hibbard wrote in the March isue of Focus on the Family Citizen:

   It is not normally reported that the ACLU stands alone in its
defense of child pornography.

   The ACLU's 1987 Policy guide states that "...all limitations of
obscenity, pornography, or indecency are unconstitutional." It concedes
that "much expression may indeed have a harmful impact on sone."
Nonetheless, it concludes that "this is no reason to sacrifice the
First Amendment."

   This is the official policy of the national chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union, a position which ACLU lawyers argued at length
before the Attorney General's Commission of Pornography.

   The standard ACLU defense for child poronography is that although
the acts which are portrayed may be illegal or harmful, the taking of
pictures is protected under the Constitution. And once these pictures
are taken, freedon of speech demands that they be distributed without
restriction. The authorities should go after (and already have the
legal means to go after) those who commit the crimes against the
children, not those who film, distribute or sell the pornography, they
say. (18)

   A C L U POLICY GUIDE: 1987

   Dir. William A. Donohue, author of the Thoe Politics of the ACLU, is
a scholar at the Heritage foundation. He has studied the official ACLU
Policy Guide and their own writings show them militantly opposed to the
following laws, limiting pornography, film classifications for movies
(G, PG, X, etc.), curtailing the use of drugs including "crack",
curfews for juvenilies, or restrictions of prostitutes. On the other
hand, they oppose laws that permit school officials to search high
school students' lockers for drugs, or police to give sobriety teste to
drunken drivers, or allowing tax deductions for churches and
synagogues, or tuition tax credits or vouchers so parents ch choose the
school for thier children, and they want the words "under God" taken
out of our national plegue of allegiance.

   These are only some of the society-changing values the ACLU wants to
initiate in their attempt to change America into a secularistic state.
And now they have become so strong and influential (together with a
media that shares many of their goals and values, which is why they get
so much good press), they know that opposition is so weak and
disorganized that they have published all 270 of their proposed issues
for the future in their official policy guide. You would probably
oppose every one of them!

   IT IS TIME TO PRAY!

   It is clear that in the next decade, the ACLU and other secularizers
of our society will launch the greatest attack on religious freedom,
Christianity, traditional moral values, and parental rights in American
history. If we sit idly back, they will use our courts against us, as
well as our families and our churches, and strip from us the freedoms
our founding fathers tried to guarantee us in the U.S. Constitution.

   We need to pray that God will raise up an army of 25,000 or more
Christian activist lawyers who will aggresively use their professional
skills in our courts and legal system to defend all individuals and
cause against these unwarranted attacks by the ACLU and other
secularizers, who seem bent on destroying the religiously based values
of our nation. For 68 years ony one side has been fighting - - the
ACLU. During the past decade a handful of christian attorneys have
begun to oppose them and have enjoyed some significant victories. We
now need that handful to increase a thousandfold in defense of historic
Judeo-Christian values.

   WHAT YOU CAN DO

   1) Pray for a revial in America. Pray for those in authority and
that the right people will elected to public office, particularly to
the Presidency, from which Supreme Court Judges and approximately 200
other Federal Court Judges are appointed.

   2) Give this ACLU expose' to all the christian attorneys you know
and urge them, if they are interested in learning more about aggressive
Christian anry of lawyers to defend religious freedom under the
Constitution, to write to...

   Dr. Tim LaHaye 122 C Street, N.W. Suite 850 Washington, D.C

   1. Donohue, William A. "Where does the ACLU Stand on the Issues?"
Human Events Magazine, Vol. XLVIII, No. 29, July 16,1988, p.1

   2. Hibbard, Ann "The Unbelievable Beliefs of the ACLU," Focus on the
Family Citizen Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 1988, p.3.

   3. Vigilate, Richard & Susan. "Taking Liberties: The ACLU Strays
from its Mission," Policy Review, No. 30, Fall 1984, p.34

   4. Vigilante, p. 34

   5. Vigilante, p. 34

   6. Vigilante, p. 34

   7. Vigilante, p. 35

   8. Rowe, Ed. "The ACLU and America's Freedoms," Southern Baptist
Advocate, March 1985, p. 14

   9. Doner, Colonel V. "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or
the Anti-Christ Lawsuit Union (ACLU)," (A special report from the
American Christian Voice Foundation), 1987

   10. Doner.

   11. Vigilante, p. 28-29

   12. "Only Secular Birds and Bees Need Apply," Buchanan, Patrick. AFA
Journal, May 1988, p. 11

   13. Buchanan, Patrick. May 1988, p. 11

   14. Vigilante;, p. 28

   15. Rowe, pp. 13-14

   16. Rowe, p. 14

   17. Rowe, p. 14

   18. Hibbard, p. 1

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