Defending Freedom: The Meritorious Work of the ACLU

So, if you are a USAmerican, do you highly value the Bill of Rights? If so, you might be, or might want to be, a supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which was born 100 years ago, on January 19, 1920.  

What’s the ACLU’s Purpose?

According to Samuel Walker’s nearly 500-page book In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990), the “essential feature of the ACLU is its professed commitment to the non-partisan defense of the Bill of Rights” (p. 5).

From its very beginning, the ACLU has had many critics. In his Introduction, Walker recounts how in the 1988 presidential election campaign, George Bush attacked Michael Dukakis, his Democratic opponent, for being a “card-carrying member of the ACLU.”

Twenty-five years later, Jerome R. Corsi, who (among other things) is a conspiracy theorist, published Bad Samaritans: The ACLU’s Relentless Campaign to Erase Faith from The Public Square.

On the opening page of his book, Corsi (b. 1946) cites these words from the Pledge of Allegiance, “. . . one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.” Because of their support for the rights of atheists also, the ACLU objects to those first four words that were added to the Pledge in 1954. But clearly, their main emphasis is, literally, “liberty and justice for all.”

And “all” means, well, all, even those who may harbor mistaken and/or wrongheaded ideas.

The ACLU has been the target of stringent criticism for defending, for example, the free speech right of Communist sympathizers in the U.S.—but also for defending the right to free speech by the KKK and Fred Phelps, the notorious pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.

In a 2010 article about Phelps (1929~2014), an ACLU spokesperson wrote, “To be clear: the ACLU strongly disagrees with the protestors' message in this case. But even truly offensive speech is protected by the First Amendment.”

She went on to say, “It is in hard cases like this where our commitment to free speech is most tested, and most important.”

Why’d the ACLU Start?

The ACLU was formed largely because the freedom of people in the late 1910s to speak out against the movement of the U.S. toward participation in World War I was being suppressed.

The primary founder of the organization was Roger Baldwin, a pacifist whose conscientious objection to “the Great War” was not recognized by the U.S. government and in 1918-19 he spent nine months in prison.

After the ACLU was formed in January 1920, Baldwin remained the executive director until 1950. Even though he retired from that position when he was 66 years old, he remained active in working for the civil liberties of all people.

In 1981, seven months before his death at the age of 97, Baldwin was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Carter.

Who’d Be Against the ACLU?

Through the years the ACLU has supported many noted people/causes, including John Scopes in the “monkey trial” of 1925, Japanese Americans after they were placed in internment camps in 1942, African Americans in the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit of 1954, the “reproductive freedom” of women since before the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, and gays/lesbians in the Obergefell v. Hodges lawsuit of 2015.

So, who would now be opposed to the ACLU? Well, among others, those who think a literal interpretation of the Bible ought to be (en)forced on all U.S. citizens in spite of the principle of the separation of church and state as well as those who think that it is acceptable to discriminate or legislate against minorities, gays and lesbians, immigrants/asylum seekers, and (desperate) women seeking to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Those who cherish the Bill of Rights, however, are deeply grateful for the meritorious work of the ACLU over the past 100 years.

Happy Bill of Rights Day!

Well, the title of this article is a greeting you don’t usually hear, I assume. But on December 15, 1941, President Roosevelt proclaimed that day as Bill of Rights Day, and it has been so designated ever since.

That first Bill of Rights Day, instituted just eight days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was on the 150^th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights—and that was 225 years ago today.

The Bill of Rights Ratified

When the U.S. Constitution was approved by Congress in 1787, there were some who were not in favor of its passage. They thought the new Constitution did not adequately guarantee the freedoms or rights of individual citizens. 

James Madison subsequently drafted twelve amendments to the Constitution. They were passed by Congress in September 1789.

Ten of those amendments were ratified on Dec. 15, 1791, when Virginia ratified them, making the necessary three-fourths of the 13 states to do so. Those ten amendments, as you know, have been popularly known through the years as the Bill of Rights.

The first of the two amendments that were not ratified would have established how members of the House of Representatives would be apportioned to the states, but that matter seems to have been covered adequately in the Constitution itself (see Art. 1, Sec. 2, Para. 3).

The other amendment not approved by 1791 actually became the 27^th, and most recent, Amendment, when it was ratified in 1992. It prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until the start of the next set of terms of office for Representatives.

The Bill of Rights Disputed 

After all these years, aspects of the Bill of Rights are discussed, and disputed, almost weekly. 

Nearly everyone knows that the First Amendment guarantees freedoms of religion, speech, and the press. It also gives citizens the right to assemble peacefully and to petition the government for changes. But what, specifically, is guaranteed? 

For example, are conservative Christians guaranteed the freedom to speak out against homosexuality and gay marriage? Some of them claim their religious liberty is endangered by laws giving LGBTQ people equality and making speaking out against them “hate speech.” 

And then what about burning the American flag? On 5:55 a.m. on Nov. 29 PEOTUS Trump tweeted, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” 

The Supreme Court, however, has twice (in 1989 and in 1990) affirmed the right to desecrate the American flag as a form of free speech as protected by the First Amendment. 

The Second Amendment, of course, has over the past several years been a matter of even more contention. As I have written about that before (see especially this Jan. 2013 article), perhaps there is little reason to write much more about that here. 

The words of that Amendment—“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”—seem straightforward and rather clear (in spite of the questionable use of commas). But as you know, they have been vociferously debated in recent years. 

The Bill of Rights Affirmed

In spite of the disputes, which seem largely contrived and unnecessary, the Bill of Rights is a remarkable and praiseworthy part of the U.S. Constitution. All of us citizens of the U.S. should be grateful for the protection of personal freedoms guaranteed by those first 10 Amendments.

So once again I say to you USAmericans, “Happy Bill of Rights Day!”

A Second Bill of Rights

Last week I posted a blog article about President Roosevelt’s famous “four freedoms” speech, which was his State of the Union address delivered 75 years ago.

Three years later, on January 11, 1944, FDR gave his 11^th (!) State of the Union talk. He had just recently come back from an overseas trip during which he had conferred with British Prime Minister Churchill in Cairo and then had attended the “Big Three” summit with Stalin in Tehran.

In addition to being exhausted, he had also caught influenza from which he was still recovering. So the President chose to send his 1/11/44 “State of the Union” message to Congress in writing and to read the message to the American people from the comfort of the White House.

That talk was another of FDR’s “fireside chats” to the whole nation. It was a highly significant talk, for in it he set forth what he called a second Bill of Rights. (Hear part of it here.)

The Second World War would not be over for another 19 months, but FDR was looking past the end of the war, which he confidently thought the Allies would win.

In that momentous “chat,” he asserted that a “basic essential to peace—permanent peace—is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.”

The President clearly was reinforcing two of the freedoms he had emphasized in his State of the Union message three years before.

He went on to aver that “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. . . . People who are hungry, people who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

So President Roosevelt proposed “a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all.” He explained that those rights include . . .

** The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

** The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

** The right of farmers to raise and sell their products at a return which will give them and their families a decent living;

** The right of every business man, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

** The right of every family to a decent home;

** The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

** The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment;

** And finally, the right to a good education.

Immediately following this listing, the President went on to assert, “All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.”

There was some progress in the U.S. toward realizing these goals in the first 20 years following the end of the war.

But in the 1960s it began to be increasingly realized that some, especially African-Americans, were not being treated fairly and their economic rights were not being realized sufficiently.

The struggle goes on as even today, for example, many of our political leaders oppose increasing the minimum wage and have voted to repeal “Obamacare” without proposing any way to provide adequate medical care to many “fellow citizens.”

Opposing the Marriage of Church and State

Since this is July 5, most of the Fourth of July celebration is over for another year. But consider now an exemplary Independence Day oration given 210 years ago today. It is a speech that has considerable relevance to us in this election year of 2012.

That oration given on July 5, 1802, was by John Leland, who was born in Massachusetts and died there in 1841 at the age of 86. As a young man in 1775, Leland became a Baptist. Two years later he moved to Virginia and served for fourteen years as a minister in that state where Baptists were a minority group.

Some Baptist ministers in Virginia were even imprisoned because of their unwillingness to abide by the religious beliefs and practices of the majority. Partly for that reason, Leland put pressure on James Madison to amend the Constitution with a bill of rights, including an amendment guaranteeing religious freedom for all.

Madison, who had been one of the leading members of the Constitutional Convention and later became known as “the father of the American Constitution,” was working hard at that time trying to get the U.S. Constitution ratified by the state of Virginia.

Five miles east of Orange, Virginia, there is a marker beside “Constitution Highway” commemorating the spot where Leland and Madison held a significant discussion in 1788. (A picture of that marker is at this link.) Partly because of that meeting, Leland mustered Baptist support and Virginia did ratify the Constitution. Then, keeping his part of the bargain, Madison was instrumental in getting the Bill of Rights passed in 1791. (I also wrote about that here.)

In “The Virginia Chronicle,” published in 1790, Leland wrote about his idea of religious freedom: “The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever,” he declares. Then later in the same document he proclaims, “Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks [Muslims], Pagans and Christians” (The Writings of John Leland, 1845, pp. 107, 118).

In 1792, Leland moved back to Massachusetts and ten years later, on July 5, 1802, he delivered the speech that is known and quoted to this day. (It can be found in an Internet collection of famous Independence Day orations.)

In that speech Leland said, “Heaven forbids the . . . marriage between church and state; their embraces therefore, must be unlawful. Guard against those men who make a great noise about religion, in choosing representatives. It is electioneering. If they knew the nature and worth of religion, they would not debauch it to such shameful purposes. If pure religion is the criterion to denominate candidates, those who make a noise about it must be rejected; for their wrangle about it, proves that they are void of it” (The Writings, p. 267).

In the next four months, we will be engulfed by vigorous and contentious political campaigning. Some candidates, and their avid supporters, will use, or misuse, religious arguments in seeking their election or the defeat of their opponents.

For the sake of the American people, especially for those citizens who belong to minority ethnic or religious groups, as well as for the sake of the “pure religion” that Rev. Leland referred to, let’s consider well his momentous words spoken 210 years ago today in commemoration of Independence Day.

Commemorating the Bill of Rights

December 15, 1791, is an important date in the history of this country. The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution were officially added on that day, exactly 220 years ago. Collectively, those ten amendments are known as the Bill of Rights.

Even though the Constitution, which was ratified in June 1788, is still hailed as a masterpiece, at the time of its adoption some people thought there was something lacking. Mainly, they believed that the Constitution did not contain adequate guarantees of the essential rights and liberties of individual citizens.

Last week U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was in Kansas City, and I was able to hear his enjoyable talk at the public library. (Justice Breyer was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1994; I was surprised to learn that he and I were both born on 8/15/38.)

Justice Breyer was here partly to promote his new book Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View (2010). Early in his book he explains how James Madison, who later became President, “pointed out that the Bill of Rights would protect individuals from abuse by a majority” (p. 6). Similarly, he begins the thirteenth chapter with these words:

“The Constitution expressly protects the liberty of individuals through the Bill of Rights.” He used the First Amendment as the first example of how that is so.

I find it rather ironic that some conservative Christians in this country complain about how their religious freedom is being stifled by the government—such as by not being able, for example, to have public displays of the Ten Commandments or Christmas creches.

Christianity is, of course, overwhelmingly the majority religion in this country. But as Madison pointed out, the Bill of Rights, beginning with the First Amendment, was put into place in order to protect the rights of minorities from abuse by the majority.

In the 1780s, Baptists were a minority group in Virginia, and some Baptist ministers were even imprisoned because of their unwillingness to abide by the religious beliefs and practices of the majority. Accordingly, John Leland, a Baptist pastor, put pressure on Madison to push for the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

There is a marker on “Constitution Highway,” five miles east of Orange, VA, commemorating the spot where in 1788, Leland and Madison, often called “the father of the American Constitution,” held a significant discussion which resulted in the ratification of the Constitution by Virginia, partly through  the support of the Baptists.

Keeping his part of the bargain, Madison, a member of Congress from Orange, presented the First Amendment to the Constitution, by which religious liberty, free speech, and the freedom of assembly are guaranteed. That is the kind of freedom, and constitutional protection, Leland and other Baptists greatly wanted.

Now the religious minorities in our country are people who believe in Buddhism, Islam, or other non-Christians religions. There is a sizable minority of atheists and non-religious people also. The Bill of Rights is important for protecting the religious freedom of those minorities.

As a Baptist, I have been proud of how Baptists in the past were advocates of religious freedom and were strong supporters of the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment. I think it is shameful how now that they are in the majority, some Baptists and other conservative Christians complain about the guarding of religious liberty for minority groups in American society today.