As
a senior in high school, my first experience with the American Civil Liberties
Union was a speech by former ACLU president Nadine Strossen. At the time, I was
impressed by Ms. Strossen's consistency, and seeming dedication to liberty; thus,
my opinion of the ACLU was favorable. My opinion has changed.
The ACLU has taken up the defense of the North American Man-Boy Love Association
(NAMBLA) in a civil suit filed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Curley. The Curley's
claim that the murderer of their son, Charles Jaynes, was driven by NAMBLA materials
to stalk 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley (photo on the right) in October of 1997. Jaynes and an accomplice
choked the boy to death with a gasoline soaked rag, sexually violated his dead body, and then
disposed of it in Maine's Great Works River. Their act was indescribably
wicked; the Curley's claim that NAMBLA bears at least some responsibility.
According to the Curley's attorney, Larry Frisoli, NAMBLA is not merely
lobbying Congress for legal change (a perfectly Constitutional act), or printing
fictional accounts of man-boy love-they are actively training their members
to rape and abuse young boys.
In an interview with DeRoy Murdock, Frisoli explained that pamphlets like NAMBLA's
"The Survival Manual: The Man's Guide to Staying Alive in Man-Boy
Sexual Relationships" aid and abet felonious conduct, telling members "where
to go to have sex with children…when to leave America [if one gets caught]
and how to rip off credit card companies to get cash to finance your flight."
Materials such as these were found in Jaynes' possession, his diary noted
that they were influential in his decision to molest children, and the Curley's
believe NAMBLA should be held accountable for their perverse willingness to promote
such conduct.
The ACLU disagrees. They claim NAMBLA's pamphlets are free speech.
This is not civil liberties advocacy, it is insanity. Just as I cannot post
web materials like "Bombs Away: A Users Guide to Firebombing the ACLU's
Massachusetts Headquarters" the basement dwelling perverts at NAMBLA have
no Constitutional right to post online descriptions of juvenile abduction and
molestation techniques, and assuredly have no amnesty in relation to civil, as
opposed to criminal, claims. The fact that the ACLU is wasting money on such a
defense while real First Amendment violations occur every day should be an offense
to its members, and a sign of the organizations growing superfluity and hypocrisy.
In recent months the ACLU has attacked Boy Scout groups in California and applauded
decisions to force Catholic charities to provide contraceptive coverage to employees.
What was once an admirable institution fighting for the real speech rights
of all Americans has descended into a debased champion of secular ideology and
moral depravity, and those who support it should begin to look elsewhere for a
twenty-first century champion of civil liberties.
IDEOLOGY
"There is room in this country for people who believe that man-boy love is OK."
(ACLU board member and ATAA attorney Harvey Silverglate)
The Patriot Act of 2001 was democratic action par excellence. Passed
by overwhelming majorities in both the House (357-66) and Senate (98-1),
it was a textbook case of American legislators, led by the President, acting in
swift response to the clear needs, and manifest will, of the citizens of the Republic.
Since its inception in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has
made a name for itself by blocking the actions of the legislative and executive
branches of government, especially at the state and local levels.
Most of the ACLU’s wrath has been directed against statutes,
i.e., laws that were democratically enacted but (for one reason or another) were
deemed unacceptable by the ACLU. Browse through the 100 Greatest Hits slideshow
on the ACLU website and you can get a feel for how successful the organization
has been in frustrating democratic choices. While some of these laws certainly
deserved to be thrown out (one thinks of Jim Crow as the clearest example), most
were reasonable democratic decisions made by citizens grappling with the perennial
political question - How shall we order our lives together?
Nobody disputes this record, including the ACLU itself. Explaining it, however,
is another matter. The ACLU’s own rationale - i.e., that majority rule must
be limited to ensure individual rights - is too bland to be of much help. Yet
this is a phenomenon we need to explain and understand, especially today when
many of the laws and procedures the ACLU is targeting (the Patriot Act, border
control, and others) are ones upon which our very survival may depend.
The key to understanding the ACLU lies in a single word - ideology.
Ideology is the attempt to account for the vast complexity of politics and
society by using only a few rarified concepts. The ideologue seizes on a handful
of abstractions and then claims everything else must somehow conform to them.
The ideology of the ACLU is civil libertarianism. Some of its more
famous abstractions are free speech, secularism, and individual privacy. Of course,
none of these ideas are intrinsically bad. In fact, each has an honored place
in American tradition. Problems arise only when they are seized upon by ideologues
and held up as unalloyed goods that automatically trump all other considerations.
Free speech, for instance. Free speech is a value that goes all the way back
to the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, and is very much a part of the great Western
tradition cherished by all Americans. But unlike the ACLU, most of us do not instinctively
equate ‘free speech’ with holy writ. We do not elevate it to the point
where it takes unquestioned precedence over everything else. Community prerogatives
are also part of our tradition, and most people have no trouble acknowledging
that sometimes such prerogatives will win out over free speech, as when local
town councils impose standards respecting taste and public decency. Or, more relevant
to today’s headlines, when the Federal government forbids the publication
of sensitive hydroelectric infrastructure diagrams on the Internet - few Americans
have any qualms about abridging this particular instance of free speech.
With some exceptions, American voters also tend to be nonideological. Whatever
their party affiliations, whether they consider themselves liberal, conservative,
or middle-of-the-road, most voters see a far more complicated world than simple
ideological categories can describe. When they go to the polling place to decide
on a ballot measure or elect a representative, Americans carry with them a vast
array of family traditions, moral and political beliefs, social prejudices, economic
interests, civic norms, religious convictions, aesthetic preferences, and - perhaps
most importantly - knowledge of the concrete circumstances facing their city,
state, and nation. Thus prepared, they draw distinctions and recognize differences
that the bare, abstract worldview of the ideologue cannot tolerate.
And it is here that the ACLU’s trouble with democracy becomes apparent.
Take censorship. Members of Congress, acting on behalf of the voters who elected
them, passed the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in 2002. The
act required libraries receiving certain forms of federal aid to install web-blocking
programs to filter material that could harm children. The act also provided that
librarians disable the software for “bona fide research or other lawful
purpose.” The ACLU challenged the law, and was successful in getting the
Supreme Court to water it down. Needless to say, the ACLU expressed disappointment
that it didn’t get CIPA struck down entirely.
For the legislators who wrote CIPA, and the voters to whose concerns they were
responding, the issue was clear. There is a difference between children accessing
pornography or instructions for making bombs, and adults doing whatever web-surfing
they choose. The former should be restricted and the latter left alone, said the
voters through their representatives.
But the ACLU didn’t see it that way. All these real-world, factual circumstances
were irrelevant. The ideologues at the ACLU ignored the gaping historical, social,
and practical differences between a 13-year-old loner downloading a scanned version
of The Anarchist Cookbook and an adult reading the latest edition of The Village
Voice online. Those concrete particulars didn’t matter, and they all were
stripped away. What mattered instead was the thinnest, most abstract thread of
high-level conceptual commonality that one can imagine - i.e., both involved ‘speech,’
and therefore both deserved absolute protection.
If America is to win the war against militant Islam, our intelligence and law
enforcement agencies must have effective legislation at their disposal. But like
all products of democratic action, such legislation is in constant danger of being
sacrificed on the ACLU’s alter of ideological purity.
Ultimately, the best defense against this ongoing assault on democratic sovereignty
is democracy itself. The next President will most probably make at least one appointment
to the Supreme Court. Depending on who that President is, the Court will either
be tipped in favor of those who respect the legislative branch and the democratic
traditions it represents, or its old ACLU-friendly habits will be reinforced for
another generation.
Response from SOC-UM's Founder:
Having had a child victimized by a member of NAMBLA I must admit to being totally outraged by the ACLU and it's reasoning for their defense of NAMBLA. NAMBLA is hiding very carefully under the first amendment, while at the same time offering comfort and support to those men who are convicted sex offenders.
The reading of NAMBLA's position papers are very telling... they call for abolishment of consent laws. They use words like sexual abuse in terms of force, but allow for adults to have "consensual" sexual relationships with children, knowing full well that children are manipulated and coerced into silence by adults during sexual abuse.
A quote from NAMBLA's Official Position Papers, Oct. 12, 1996:
"NAMBLA'S first position was adopted at its third General Membership Meeting in June, 1980. It focused on the hated "statutory rape" laws which confuse rape and violence with consensual sex. "Statutory rape" laws vilify, persecute, and arrest the development of the love which men have for boys and which boys have for men. These laws are used in a discriminatory way to give long prison sentences to boy lovers and hinder the development of the gentleness, wisdom, and creative contribution of boy lovers as a minority group. The resolution proposed by Tom Reeves states: (1) The North American Man/Boy Love Association calls for the abolition of age-of- consent and all other laws which prevent men and boys from freely enjoying their bodies. (2) We call for the release of all men and boys imprisoned by such laws."
How nice of NAMBLA to think of children (boys) and their sexual freedom in relationship to men, and how telling. NAMBLA helping boys find their sexual freedom, is like snakes helping their prey.
That the ACLU is getting into the battle is an outrage. Offering assistance to a group that advocates the sexual abuse of children (oops, "consensual" sex with children), and whom many members are convicted child molesters is beyond the pale.
I'm sadden as a Country we have people who don't understand that helping NAMBLA helps them promote sexual abuse of our boy children. A truly dark day in history for children.
Debbie Mahoney (SOC-UM, Safeguarding Our Children-United Mothers)
09 February 2010