Christmas pity for the ACLU  
How would you like to be “against God” in these times?
From, The Kentucky Citizen Digest,  January/February, 2002.

In this festive season when peace on earth is lacking but good will toward men is abundant, may “auld acquaintance be forgot,” as we “take a cup of kindness yet” for the American Civil Liberties Union.  Just because the organization is dragging four more Kentucky counties to court for posting a historical display that includes The Ten Commandments is no reason to withhold our sympathy from this weary lot of lawyers.

Since Sept. 11 there are few flag burners to defend, nobody’s burning draft cards, and people are saying the Pledge of Allegiance like crazy.  Add in that it’s an increasingly hard sell to convince Mr. and Mrs. Everyday Kentucky that the ACLU is the incarnation of St. Nick, handing out assurances of personal liberties to one and all, when their recent actions cast them in the role of the Grinch that stole the Ten Commandments.

Consider their most recent targets, Garrard, Mercer, Rowan and Grayson Counties, which they are suing for historical displays that include not only the Ten Commandments, but excerpts from documents such as the Congressional Record, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Kentucky Constitution.  These are sparsely populated counties with relatively small tax bases, hardly able to finance a protracted legal battle, making the ACLU Grinch look even greener.

There are now a total of seven Kentucky counties in legal battles for the right to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings.  It’s got to be stressful for ACLU general counsel David Friedman to carry a workload like that.  Otherwise, why would he have made such a ludicrous assertion, likening county officials with the Taliban, saying, “It’s not a small measure of irony that these four governments, among others, are seeking to impose their religious views on the nation at the same time the nation is fighting those overseas who would impose their religious views on others.” 

Surely Friedman is not saying that county officials—in compliance with a 2000 General Assembly resolution allowing the posting of the Ten Commandments as part of a historical display—have become terrorists!  What else could he mean?  Perhaps he has secret knowledge of magistrates and judges executive beating women for exposing their ankles in public, or flying kites, or picnicking.  Maybe he knows of secret religious tribunals (conducted on government property, no doubt) to determine the lengths of men’s beards.  Otherwise, Friedman sounds, well, desperate—which is all the more reason to take pity on the entire organization.

Even the ACLU’s name doesn’t make sense.  Philosophers and historians will probably never be able to figure out if the moniker is Orwellian Newspeak or simply archaic.  Which Americans are they defending?  And which civil liberties?  The constitution says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” but it also says, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  Perhaps all the stress of recent lawsuits has affected the ACLU’s attention span to the extent that they are unable to complete a sentence.

Most residents of the seven Kentucky counties now in Ten Commandment legal battles will probably tell you that they are Americans and their religious rights have been infringed.  Maybe we could all chip in and sponsor a contest to help the ACLU come up with a more fitting name for its organization.  How about, Elitist Fringe Group of Legal Hairsplitters?

But the best thing about offering compassion to the ACLU is that it takes so little to do so much.  What Kentuckians have in abundance is common sense.  This we may generously offer the ACLU in their darker moments of fuzzy priorities.  The Ten Commandments is, after all, a historical document written over 3000 years ago, the centerpiece of a larger collection of books referred to as The Law.  So it would seem an appropriate document to adorn the halls of a county courthouse.  The document is affirmed by the major religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which raises the question: Which religion does it establish?

When all is said and done, it will make each of us feel warm all over to say a little prayer for the ACLU—just make sure you don’t do it in a public school.  

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander , Executive Director Martin Cothran , Senior Associate Policy Analyst