ACLU’s Hypocritical Approach To Church And State
Posted on March 30, 2006
Liberals proudly beam about how the ACLU keeps America safe from becoming a theocracy by dilegently keeping “church and state” seperated through endless lawsuits. I don’t believe that the founders of our country meant for the First Amendment to be bent to the shape the ACLU has put it into, but there is definitely a line between religion and the government that needs to be drawn.
In Bridgeport West Virginia, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer has asked a West Virginia high school to remove a picture of Jesus Christ that has hung at the school for 40 years. I won’t argue argue against the point that a highschool is really not an appropriate place for the picture, and I’ll even concede that the ACLU will probably win this case, but it most definitely is not a threat. And when voluntary acedemic classes on the Bible are offered at a school, you can bet the ACLU will be keeping a watchful eye. While I have my apprehensions with the ACLU on this , no one wants our children to be indoctrinated.
While there are grey areas, where we can all debate these controversial issues, there should not be a double standard. When it comes to Christianity in the public schools, the ACLU’s outcry can be heard the loudest. When it is Islam in the public schools, the ACLU’s silence speaks volumes.
According to the Thomas More Law Center, for three weeks, “impressionable 12-year-old students” were, among other things, placed into Islamic city groups; took Islamic names; wore identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the star and crescent moon; handed materials that instructed them to ‘Remember Allah always so that you may prosper’; completed the Islamic Five Pillars of Faith, including fasting; and memorized and recited the ‘Bismillah’ or ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,’ which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.
Students also played “jihad games” during the course, which was part of the school’s world history and geography program.
The ACLU were completely silent on this one. This isn’t suprising, since a alleged senior terrorist operative, Abdurahman Alamoudi helped the ACLU write their religion-in-the-classroom guidelines.
In 2004, the ACLU won a hard fought lawsuit to remove a cross from the Mohave Desert public preserve.
In the case, Peter Eliasberg, an attorney at the ACLU stated, “The federal government should not offer public land – owned collectively by people of every faith and of no faith – as a site for the advertisement and promotion of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Pope John Paul II, or any other particular religious figure. Contrary to what some believe, it is not the role of the federal government to advance Christianity or any other sectarian belief.” He further stated, “The courts have consistently held that a permanent religious fixture on federal land is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
However, it looks like the ACLU may be eating those words when the religion is Islam.
Hillel Stavis writes at Frontpage Magazine:
Now imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find anyone – either at the Massachusetts ACLU – or at its big brother in Washington who had brought legal action – or who would even render an opinion – on the construction of a $22,000,000 religious structure on land virtually given away by the city of Boston and attendant religious instruction courses forced on a nearby state-funded college. How could such a monumental religious undertaking involving the obvious endorsement by government officials at every level escape the withering gaze of the watchdogs of the ACLU?
It took only a few phone calls to find the answer. The religious structure and institution was neither a church nor a synagogue. It was a mosque. And not just another mosque. The Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque project will be the largest on the east coast of the United States and will be funded primarily through Middle East emirate money.
Not content with support pledged by Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, the ISB sought to purchase the city-owned land at a bargain basement price. And did they ever succeed. The City of Boston obliged the group by selling its 1.9 acre site valued at $2,000,000 for $175,000. Boldly compounding the fraudulent conveyance part of the scam, the city agreed to receive further in-kind payment from the ISB in the form of an Islamic Library and courses in Islamic instruction at a state facility, Roxbury Community College; not a $200 crèche or a menorah made of scrap tubing, but a multi-million dollar enterprise based on defrauding taxpayers and establishing ongoing indoctrination courses on the glories of Islam. Not only did this enterprise represent “inherent religious activity”, but it went far beyond the ACLU’s floor for triggering action by involving explicit and manifold religious activity.
If, as de Rochefoucault had it, “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”, the ACLU has to be first in line at that altar. Carol Rose, Director of the Massachusetts ACLU, told me in 2004, in response to a private lawsuit brought by an individual based on violation of the establishment clause, that her organization favored the ISB’s position insofar as the lawsuit “violated that organization’s right of free speech.” After I put my dropped jaw back into place, I suggested that a $22,000,000 mosque built on giveaway city land along with taxpayer funded Islamic indoctrination amounted to a textbook case of Establishment Clause transgression and made the crèche case look like a minor infraction. At that point she terminated the conversation.
Go read the whole controversy, including how…
one of the founders of the ISB, Abdul Rachman Alamoudi is doing a stretch in a federal prison for receiving cash from the Libyan mission to the United Nations, failing to disclose numerous trips to Libya and conspiring in a political assassination. He has also expressed his support for Hamas, along with Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.
If that isn’t enough to get your blood pressure boiling, maybe this is.
North Liberty, Iowa. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has signed a lease for up to 25 years with a group that wants to build a Muslim youth camp at Lake Coralville.
The lease allows the Cedar Rapids-based Muslim Youth Camps of America to build on 114 acres of federal land. Construction can start once the group works out details with county and state regulators, the corps said Wednesday.
Plans for the $934,000 camp north of North Liberty call for lodging up to 60 campers ages 10 to 17 in cabins and tents plus staffers during the summer and up to 40 per night in the offseason. When completed, the camp will include a 2,400 square-foot lodge, a beach, recreation trails, five cabins, five tent pods and a bathroom.
Bill Aossey, Representative for MYCA, announced that the camp/convention center “has been purchased and given the name ‘Camp Heritage’ to emphasize the importance for Muslim children of understanding their roots.”
These statements, including the fact that the proposed site will contain of a 36-foot dome-covered prayer tower, has not fazed the ACLU. Concerning the matter, the ICLU, the Iowa branch of the ACLU (who in March of 2000 condemned a proposal by 12 legislators to require posting of the Ten Commandments in the Iowa State Senate chamber) had this to say: “There is no establishment clause violation in government permitting the building of a structure that resembles a mosque or church…we are unaware of any cases involving governmental religious displays based on the theory that certain public architecture is an endorsement of one religion over another…this is not the case in which to try that argument out….”
If this doesn’t bother you enough, the Militant Islam Monitor points out even more disturbing details.
Bill Aossey attends the Cedar Rapids Islamic Center. The website for the center contains numerous extremist and hate links, including a link to Al Haramain, the foundation that was one of the “principal players in charity-based financing of al-Qaeda” (December 20, 2002, National Review On-Line).
Bill was a featured speaker at the 2002 and 2003 Iowa Muslim Student Association Annual Conferences. At the 2002 Conference, he gave a speech entitled “Martyrdom in Islam.” Martyrdom is considered a code word for suicide bombings. Also speaking at the 2002 Conference was Siraj Wahhaj, an individual that is alleged to have been a co-conspirator of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. At the 2003 Conference, Bill was joined by feature speaker Nihad Awad. Awad is the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and an ex-member of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a front group for the terrorist organization Hamas. It has been reported that MYCA plans to rent out its proposed convention center in the off-season. Is it possible that the 2004 Conference will be held there?
Judgement day for the final decision on the camp/conference center is set for Friday, July 11. According to the Daily Iowan, “Authority to approve or reject the camp proposal lies with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers…The decision to build or not to build falls squarely on Col. William Bayles’ shoulders.”
Jalel Aossey, Bill’s son, who is listed on the Iowa Secretary of State Corporate Registry as the Registered Agent for MYCA, says that this would be the first Muslim camp in the United States to lease federal land, and that he envisions the camp as the first in a nationwide network. Will Col. Bayles give in to this vision of federally provided camps with radical connections or will he exercise restraint? I don’t know what his answer will be, but I do know which way I would vote.
Ahhh, no wonder the ACLU doesn’t have a problem with any of this. The ACLU’s hypocrisy on the issue of seperation of church and state should be a wake up call for any concerned American. One thing that can be said of the ACLU is that they are consistent. If there is a picture of Jesus in a school, or a voluntary prayer at a graduation cermeony the ACLU will be screaming that a theocracy is threatening our democracy, but when possible terrorist ties are involved and the threat may be real….you can count on the ACLU’s support. Would someone please investigate the ACLU?
Linked at Cao’s Blog
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» Filed Under ACLU, Church And State, News, War On Terror
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7 Responses to “ACLU’s Hypocritical Approach To Church And State”
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Syndicate Me
Just seeing Cedar Rapids mentioned in this story surprised me. Why, I don’t know since it was turning more Democrat back in ‘89′ when I left there.
Good story Jay. Our opinions differ only in the line being drawn between religion and government and considering “religious instruction” or anything pertaining to religion as “indoctrination”.
Thats suprising Lobo. You would not consider that a line be drawn between Islam and our religion? Or Islamic instruction in a school would not be indoctrination?
Let’s not forget when the ACLU defends religion.
1. Aug. 8, 2005 PORTALES, NM — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico today announced that it has succeeded in freeing street preacher Shawn Miller from the Roosevelt County jail. Miller was arrested last April after Portales police claimed he was yelling at passing cars, although Miller maintains he was merely preaching the word of God.
2. June 1, 2005 PHILADELPHIA — In Pennsylvania s first court interpretation of the state s Religious Freedom Protection Act, a city judge has ruled that a devout Muslim firefighter who refuses to shave his beard on religious grounds cannot be fired while his legal case continues.
3. December 22, 2004: ACLU of New Jersey successfully defends right of religious expression by jurors.
4. November 20, 2004: ACLU of Nevada supports free speech rights of evangelists to preach on the sidewalks of the strip in Las Vegas.
5. November 9, 2004: ACLU of Nevada defends a Mormon student who was suspended after wearing a T-shirt with a religious message to school.
6. August 11, 2004: ACLU of Nebraska defends church facing eviction by the city of Lincoln.
7. July 10, 2004: Indiana Civil Liberties Union defends the rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets.
8. June 9, 2004: ACLU of Nebraska files a lawsuit on behalf of a Muslim woman barred from a public pool because she refused to wear a swimsuit.
9. June 3, 2004: Under pressure from the ACLU of Virginia, officials agree not to prohibit baptisms on public property in Falmouth Waterside Park in Stafford County.
10. May 11, 2004: After ACLU of Michigan intervened on behalf of a Christian Valedictorian, a public high school agrees to stop censoring religious yearbook entries.
11. March 25, 2004: ACLU of Washington defends an Evangelical minister’s right to preach on sidewalks.
12. February 21, 2003: ACLU of Massachusetts defends students punished for distributing candy canes with religious messages.
13. October 28, 2002: ACLU of Pennsylvania files discrimination lawsuit over denial of zoning permit for African American Baptist church.
14. July 11, 2002: ACLU supports right of Iowa students to distribute Christian literature at school.
15. April 17, 2002: In a victory for the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the ACLU of Virginia, a federal judge strikes down a provision of the Virginia Constitution that bans religious organizations from incorporating.
16. January 18, 2002: ACLU defends Christian church’s right to run anti-Santa ads in Boston subways.
What that has to do with this post I don’t understand. I don’t think this post was about their lack of protecting religious freedom, but about their attacks on it, and double standard when Islam does the same. Try your wonderful defense of the ACLU on an appropriate thread.
Jay,
I guess our differences would lie in semantics.
I consider Islam a cult so the “line” is the same as that concerning satanism, wicca or any other occultic group.
Your “indoctrination” statement was refering to the removal of Christ’s picture from the classroom and your agreement that the classroom is not the place for it.
Religion (Christianity) is a public institution. Since nature abhors a vaacum and liberals are in control of our schools and public institutions, it stands to reason what God will be replaced with, once removed from those institutions.
No, my “indoctrination” statement was in reference to Bible class in a public school, and I don’t have a problem with it because it is voluntary. However, if a government endorsed school were to force students to take the class and the class was focused on converting them…I wouldn’t agree with that being in a public school. I just said there is a line…I don’t necessarily think any of the examples I cited crossed that line. They were just illustrative of the double standard that the ACLU applies. I merely gave the ACLU the benefit of the doubt in those situations to illustrate how, if for the sake of argument we were to assume they were correct…how it presents a double standard.
I stand corrected.
“I merely gave the ACLU the benefit of the doubt…”
Be very careful!