The American Civil Liberties Union
By Dan Gatlin, 1990
At first the name sounds impressive. The American Civil Liberties Union. Judging by the name, one might get the impression that this is a patriotic, fair-minded group of people who are concerned with the freedoms and rights of all Americans. Indeed, that is the way they promote themselves. However, upon closer inspection one realizes that they are neither patriotic nor fair-minded. The ACLU is comprised of 250,000 contributing members, 5,000 volunteer attorneys, and 70 staff attorneys. They have an average case load of 6,000 cases at any one time. They have an annual budget of $14,000,000, most of which is supplied by the American taxpayer through the Civil Rights Attorneys Fee Awards Act of 1976 (1). The ACLU has defended every immoral act that one can imagine. They are one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation and, by their own admission, one of the most hated.
The History of the ACLU
The ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin. Baldwin was born on January 21, 1884 in a wealthy, prominent, Boston family. The two most influential people in Baldwin’s youth were his grandfather and aunt. His grandfather, William Henry Baldwin, was an out-spoken atheist. Baldwin would later credit his grandfather for many of his “liberal and “nonconformist (1)’ views. His aunt, Ruth Standish Baldwin, was a member of the Socialist Party. Baldwin said of her: “She shared my radicalism, but in her own more respectable way” (2).
In later years, after his graduation from Harvard University, Baldwin would be influenced by three strong-willed, independent women: Anna Louise Strong, Margaret Sanger, and Emma Goldman.
Baldwin met Anna Louise Strong in 1910. After a short courtship they were engaged to be married. The engagement ended when Baldwin refused to give up drinking and smoking. However, the two stayed in touch and remained friends for the rest of their lives. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Strong renounced her American citizenship and moved to Moscow.
In 1915, Baldwin met Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger
believed in improving the human race by voluntary and involuntary birth control and sterilization (3). (This is a direct application of Friedrich Nietzshhe’s concept of the “Superman.” It is no accident that there are certain correlations between Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood. Both stem from the philosophy of Nietzsche. (4)) Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. Almost singlehandedly, she laid the foundation for abortion, euthanasia, fetal experimentation, surrogacy, and organ harvesting. Sanger once wrote, “Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of those who should never have been born. More children from the fit, less from the unfit – that is the chief issue of birth control.” Sanger and Baldwin were also lifelong friends.
Baldwin first met Emma Goldman during one of her lectures on humanism. She taught him about the self-sufficiency of man and the relativity of all morals. Goldman advocated violent revolution, political assassination, and Marxist Populism. Baldwin later said that she was “one of the chief inspirations of his life.”
In October of 1917, Baldwin founded the Civil Liberties Bureau. After an investigation by the FBI, the Bureau was raided and Baldwin was sent to prison for sedition. When he was released, he reopened (and renamed) the American Civil Liberties Union, on January 20, 1920.
Over the past 70 years, the ACLU has been involved in many landmark cases. The following are but a few selected ones.
1920 – The Palmer Raids Case: The ACLU combated Attorney General Mitchell Palmer over the deportation of a number of resident aliens who had been convicted of violent labor disruptions or who had been proven to be actively involved in various communist subversive activities.
1933 – The Ulysses Case: The ACLU led the anti-censorship battle over a novel by English author, James Joyce, which had been banned because of U.S. obscenity laws.
1950 – Loyalty Oaths Campaign: The ACLU fought McCarthy era requirements that public officials forswear any involvement with communist or subversive organizations.
1962 – Regent’s Prayer Case: In this case, one of several anti-prayer suits that the ACLU was involved in, lawyers argued that a prayer recited each day in the New York public schools, constituted an unlawful “establishment of religion.”
1973 – Doe vs. Bolton: In this “manipulated test case,” the ACLU led the legal fight that, in conjunction with Roe vs. Wade, overturned the restrictive abortion laws in all fifty states.
1977 – The Skokie March: The ACLU defended the right of American Nazis to march through a predominantly Jewish suburb of Chicago.
1989 – Equal Access Act: The ACLU was successful in making voluntary student prayer or Bible study meetings before or after school the one exception to the Equal Access Act of 1984. So, while students may gather in public schools to discuss Marxism, view Planned Parenthood films, or hold gay activist meetings, they may not pray or read the Bible. (5)
With Liberty and Justice for Whom?
Barry Lynn, the ACLU’s Legislative Director said: “There is clearly a distinction made between religious speech and activity and any other speech and activity. There is an establishment clause which limits and tempers only religious speech and activity. There is no establishment clause which in any way limits economic, cultural, historical; or philosophical expression. Thus, the state may embrace any economic, political or philosophical theory; it may not embrace or enhance any religious activity.” (6)
In other words, according to the ACLU, since there is a separation of church and state, the state may have no involvement with any religious group and may not hold to any religious dogma. The state should be totally indifferent to the church. But was this the intent of our founding fathers?
George Washington: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”
Patrick Henry: “The Bible is worth all other books which have been printed.”
Andrew Jackson: “That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic stands.”
U.S. Grant: “The Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties.”
Thomas Jefferson: “The Bible is the corner stone of liberty.” (7)
Separation of church and state simply means that one will not govern the other. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said it best: “We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents … To hold that it may not, would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. . . . The First Amendment does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of church and state.” (8)
Very clearly it is the intentions of the ACLU to stifle religion. Christianity, in particular, is diametrically opposed to their humanist philosophy.
Links with Communism
The goal of the ACLU is communism. Reading a list of the founding members of the ACLU is like reading a Who’s Who of the American Communist Party. Norman Thomas was the
Socialist Party’s candidate for President and a board member of the ACLU. Morris Hillquit was the director of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party and a member of the ACLU’s first National Committee. Other founding members include William Foster, Chairman of the Communist Party USA, Max Eastman, editor of the Communist Party’s The Masses, and Harry F. Ward, prominent Communist Party member. Baldwin himself admitted in a 1976 interview that “Communism is the goal.” (9)
The ACLU claims to be interested in the rights of all men. In fact, they are only interested in promoting their own humanist ideas.
1. Grant, George, Trial and Error. Brentwood: Wolgemuth and Hyatt, 1989 p.154.
2. Ibid, p.53-54.
3. Alcorn, Randy. Christians in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution. Portland: Multnomah Press, 1985 p.39.
4. Ferm, Vergilius, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. Paterson: Littlefield, Adam and Co., 1964 p. 535.
5. Grant,George. Ibid, p. 24-28.
6. Policy Review. September 1988.
7. Halley’s Bible Handbook. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965 p. 18.
8. Grant, George. Ibid, p.73.
9. Lamson, Peggy. Roger Baldwin: Founder of the ACLU. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976 p.192.
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