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alan

Actually the ACLU has defended our religious liberties for years. It has defended the rights of prisoners to practice their religion, freed a street preacher from prison, defended jurors' rights to religious expression, defended a Mormon student's right to wear a t-shirt to school with a religious message, defended the rights of students in Michigan to have religious yearbook entries, defended MA students' rights to distribute candy canes with religious messages, defended the rights of IA students to distribute Christian literature at school, they've even worked with Jerry Falwell.
And that's just the last few years.

Meanwhile the Bush administration recently signed a law limiting the rights of religious protesters to assemble and protest at the funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq.

Wes

Alan,

My assumption is that you refer to Fred Phelps and the massively inbred Westboro Baptist Church. They are not protesters, they are scum. The ACLU is far down on my list of favorite organizations but I'll take them any day over Phelps and his gang of mental defects.

Wes

Correction to my post. There was a typo in the blog url.

alan

My point wasn't about Phelps.

My comment was about the fact that the ACLU works to support our freedom of religion all the time. So, taking on this case isn't a change in direction at all. In the meantime, there are plenty of examples (and I gave one) where conservatives are limiting rights to free speech. So the "ACLU is bad, Conservatives protect free speech" rhetoric is simply blind to the facts.

John B

Alan

I'm wondering if there's a prayer at your local high school commencement? I don't think it's necessarily appropriate, but in most places where prayer no longer takes place it's because the school district is afraid of being sued by the ACLU.

alan

Well, I can't say whether there is or not, as I don't have kids in school. When I was a HS teacher a few years ago there was certainly an invocation at the beginning of the commencement exercises.

When I graduated from high school, back in the time before time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and God was a child, (1989) we had the normal graduation ceremony, and on the Sunday evening before that we had a "Baccalaureate" ceremony which was a completely voluntary religious (Christian) ceremony with prayer, scripture, and a sermon, held in the HS auditorium. Nearly all the graduating seniors attended.

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