Wednesday
Card Carrying Member
One of the great things about blogging is that you don't need a news hook. One common criticism of the ACLU is that they do not fight to protect 2nd Amendment Rights, but they do fight to protect many other rights. That is, while they frequently join or even encourage action against laws which facially appear to violate the First Amendment by establishing a religion, preventing the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech; the Fourth Amendment by allowing unreasonable searches and seizures; or the Fourteenth Amendment by not providing for equal protection under the law, they do not join or encourage law suits challenging laws which require licenses, waiting periods, or other burdens upon the right to bear arms (nb. the links aren't random so much as carefully picked out to counteract some common false claims about the ACLU).
Many people claim that the ACLU's lack of positive action against gun-control laws (I know of no examples of the ACLU taking legal actions in favor of gun-control laws, though there could be some I am unaware of) is reason enough for them to not support, and to in fact oppose, the entire organization. If anyone thinks this is a strawman, that there are no people who think this a sufficient reason to oppose the ACLU, comment and I'll take the time to find such people explicity saying so.
Granting for the purposes of argument that a) the ACLU's position on the Second Amendment is wrong on the merits (I've never studied the issue, but it seems likely to me) and b) actively defending the right to bear arms is as or more important than defending other constitutional rights in the current political environment and as valuable a use for the ACLU's resources (a belief that is quite mad), this seems at most a reason to not donate to the ACLU and to chide them for mistakenly (hypocritically? They're very clear on their 2nd Amendment position) not defending each and every part of the Bill of Rights with equal vigor. It doesn't make their great efforts to defend other rights anything but great efforts, even if one really thinks that defending the right to bear arms is an as good or better use for their limited resources.
What makes those attempts not great is if one really thinks atheists should be legally coerced into participating in religious life, or that protesting the government really needs to be curtailed.
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Many people claim that the ACLU's lack of positive action against gun-control laws (I know of no examples of the ACLU taking legal actions in favor of gun-control laws, though there could be some I am unaware of) is reason enough for them to not support, and to in fact oppose, the entire organization. If anyone thinks this is a strawman, that there are no people who think this a sufficient reason to oppose the ACLU, comment and I'll take the time to find such people explicity saying so.
Granting for the purposes of argument that a) the ACLU's position on the Second Amendment is wrong on the merits (I've never studied the issue, but it seems likely to me) and b) actively defending the right to bear arms is as or more important than defending other constitutional rights in the current political environment and as valuable a use for the ACLU's resources (a belief that is quite mad), this seems at most a reason to not donate to the ACLU and to chide them for mistakenly (hypocritically? They're very clear on their 2nd Amendment position) not defending each and every part of the Bill of Rights with equal vigor. It doesn't make their great efforts to defend other rights anything but great efforts, even if one really thinks that defending the right to bear arms is an as good or better use for their limited resources.
What makes those attempts not great is if one really thinks atheists should be legally coerced into participating in religious life, or that protesting the government really needs to be curtailed.
