If you run across anyone who trots out the tired calumny that the ACLU is a bunch of liberal whiners out only to protect lunatic left-wing causes, direct them to this story:
A Kansas church group that protests at military funerals nationwide filed suit in federal court, saying a Missouri law banning such picketing infringes on religious freedom and free speech.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, Mo., on behalf of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church, which has outraged mourning communities by picketing service members’ funerals with signs condemning homosexuality.
The church and the Rev. Fred Phelps say God is allowing troops, coal miners and others to be killed because the United States tolerates gay men and lesbians.
The ACLU has demonstrated time and again that their charter interest is not in the ideology of the speaker, but the protection of speech itself (the other classic example is their defense of Nazi marchers in Skokie). One can agree or disagree whether this particular case merits their protection, but given that Rev. Phelps would probably be the first to line the ACLU up against the wall were he to become God-Emperor of the world, I have to admire their determined support of principle.
The bottom line is, fringe cases of free speech, whether Fred Phelps or Larry Flynt, serve as canaries in the coal mine. If someone can term speech too awful to be heard under certain circumstances, it makes it easier to spread the definition of both the circumstances and what can be considered too awful. There probably are limits, but those limits are best served by constant testing, not by simple acquiescence to what strikes me, you, or some legislature as comfortable and uncontroversial.
As much as I can’t stand the Westboro lunatics, I have to admit I look forward to waving yet another example of the ACLU defending a right-wing religious group under the noses of the “ACLU is anti-Christian!” crowd.
This one should really make some people’s heads explode with confusion.
Assuming, of course, that they take their fingers out of their ears. A friend and I had a big argument with a commenter over on my blog last year over the ACLU’s role in the bogus “War on Christmas”. It went several rounds, and he was still convinced the ACLU was a bunch of left-wing wackos who hated religion and decency, and they only defended a few token Christians to disguise their true agenda.
Surely they could find a few more palatable Christians to support if that were their fiendish plan. As with the Skokie incident, something like this is more likely to lose them support (monetary and political) than retain it.
(I think I’ve got this Type Key thing figured out now ….)
This is one of the reasons I support the ACLU and send them a check every year. While I may shudder at some of the people on whose behalf they act, defending offensive speech is important to all of us. Without dissent, freedom means nothing.