The ACLU has a page listing just a few of the recent cases in which they have defended the religious liberty of Christians:
December 22, 2004: ACLU of New Jersey successfully defends right of religious expression by jurors.
November 20, 2004: ACLU of Nevada supports free speech rights of evangelists to preach on the sidewalks of the strip in Las Vegas.
August 11, 2004: ACLU of Nebraska defends church facing eviction by the city of Lincoln.
July 10, 2004: Indiana Civil Liberties Union defends the rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets.
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.
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.
March 25, 2004: ACLU of Washington defends an Evangelical minister's right to preach on sidewalks.
February 21, 2003: ACLU of Massachusetts defends students punished for distributing candy canes with religious messages.
October 28, 2002: ACLU of Pennsylvania files discrimination lawsuit over denial of zoning permit for African American Baptist church.
July 11, 2002: ACLU supports right of Iowa students to distribute Christian literature at school.
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.
January 18, 2002: ACLU defends Christian church's right to run "anti-Santa" ads in Boston subways.
Notice how many of these cases involve Christians expressing their beliefs in the public square -- on streets and in public places. When the Christian Right complains about liberals pushing religion from the public square, they aren't telling the truth. Individuals' rights to express religion in the public square not only isn't being attacked by the ACLU, it's being actively defended.
Notice also that these are only cases from 2002 through the end of 2004 -- and these aren't even all the cases listed on the page. It's only a small sampling of instances where the ACLU has defended the right of people to express their religious beliefs or practice their religion, but it's more than enough to demonstrate the falsehood of claims about the ACLU being an anti-Christian organization.
The question becomes, then, are those making such claims completely unaware of these cases (which means that they haven't done any homework on the matter) or are they aware of the cases but making the claims anyway (which means that they aren't entirely honest, trustworthy, or credible)? It's a question that deserves an answer.
Read More:
See also my webpage at:
ACLU Fight For Christians
and YouTube videos at:
Fox News Forgets ACLU Story Contradicts Fox Falsehood
and
Fox News Forgets Fact in Christian Graduation Speech Story
You provide some decent examples of the ACLU defending Christianity in the general public, but you have completely avoided their less-than-consistent activity in Government/Public Education.
Prime examples: The ACLU sues city council after city council over praying in Jesus’ name. They don’t sue to stop all prayer, but in every case the target has been Christian prayer. They even fought for the right of a Wiccan to pray at a council meeting.
Or maybe how they fight against any Christianity being exposed to school children yet are found absent when Islamic indoctrination is going on. Are the examples I have cited biased? Sure, but so are yours.
Gee, I’m not sure where you learned to read (a christian school ?) but the ACLU did NOT fight for the “right of a Wiccan to pray at a council meeting”. They were being made to pay for her attorney when she sued the city council for mentioning Jesus Christ (how do you “mention” Jesus Christ ?) in a council prayer. I wondered how the ACLU would be involved in promoting any kind of religion in a governmental venue – and of course they weren’t.
Did you really think no one would bother to click on your links ?
That’s because Christianity doesn’t always belong in government and public education.
They sue to stop sectarian prayers because they are illegal and all sectarian prayers are Christian. Find a city council saying sectarian, non-Christian prayers and the ACLU will sue if there is someone local with standing.
That’s because if a government body insists on not having non-sectarian prayers, then they must accept the sectarian prayers of everyone who applies to deliver prayers.
This is settled case law so when the ACLU is suing in these matters, they are suing to force government bodies to follow settled, established law.
Feel free to cite examples of people doing the exact same thing with Christianity as was done by Islam but getting sued over it. What, you can’t? Too bad.
Not at all — they just don’t prove what you are claiming. In each case, the ACLU was suing to get government bodies to follow established case law. I’m confident that you can’t provide a sound legal argument against any of the lawsuits you cited.
Citing the truth isn’t bias, and it’s the truth that the ACLU has filed numerous lawsuits to defend the rights of Christians to express or follow their religious beliefs when they are acting as private citizens. This is not contradicted when the ACLU sues to stop government officials from abusing their public positions to promote their personal religion.
Quite simply the A C L U is involved only when the C0nstitution is abused. As this is invariably by fundamentalist Christian groups it6 wo9uld be obvious to a visually impaired person, but not a mentally impaired bigot,that America being overwhelmingly “Christian” that this is the sect that would be more likely to, militarily, man the ramparts to defend it’s, heretofore, unquestioned authority. If atheists tried to
subvert or misuse the “Constitution.” I am sure the A C L U would be just as rigorous
in their protective activities.
B.S.
all that you gave as examples for the ACLU taking up for Chrisitains were dated back 8 years or better. Things have changed and your support is laking – have you any recenet examples. The ACLU is not so balanced as you seem to imply. If you had evidence I would like to see it. Thank you.
Why don’t you go look at their site to see what cases they have worked on? In case you didn’t notice, this post was from 2005. That makes most of the cases very recent to when the post was written.
All these sites say is they defended so and so. Give us cases to check out! Example Roe v Wade, Davis v United States, Smith v Bayer Corp. That way WE can look up the case to see if its ligit! All these sites tell me, is that they are set up to appear they protect christians, to refute allegations aggainst the ACLU. I do not believe these sites. Present Cases!
Not everything becomes a legal case. Sometimes, pressure from the ACLU means that the problem never goes to court.
But you’ve just demonstrated an inability to look up anything. There are detailed references at the link I provide above. Just for you, I added a couple of links above – though I don’t seriously believe that you’ll bother clicking on them, either.
Well, you also don’t believe in doing even the tiniest amount of work on your own – like clicking on a link.
I was watching the World Series last night and during the 7th inning stretch, a Military service member dressed in uniform was singing God bless America. I know that Baseball is a private company, but a government employee (military man) should not be used in this manner. This shows government prejudice to a god and a preference to religion. Will someone do anything about this???
People want more recent cases of the ACLU fighting for Christianity? Three words: Westboro Baptist Church.
Btw, I think the ACLU was correct in standing behind WBC member’s right to picket whatever they want. Speech is only truly free when even the most offensive speech is a not just allowed, but raised to the status of a legal right.
And for the rest of us who find the pickets morally reprehensible, we have the right to counter-picket the WBC.
The WBC was the first thing that jumped to mind when I read this article. I am quite sure an internet search would yield many other cases. (Which, if you are so inclined, you can do yourself…I agree with the author Cline’s premise.)
Oh, I just thought of another one. During the summer of 2010, the ACLU protected the KKK’s right to hold a rally in the major east coast city where
I live. The Klan claims to be Christian, and uses Christian Bible passages and Christian imagery all the time.
For those who say, “Those people aren’t REAL Christians…REAL Christians are (insert brand/personal definition of Christianity here) all I can say is I’d ask the real Christians to please identify yourselves, but that would result in bunch of people all arguing with each other, each claiming their version/brand of Christianity to be god’s favorite. And that could get really nasty. Jerry Springer Show nasty.
Yes, there are more cases of the ACLU standing up for the rights of minorities; but maybe that’s because of Christian people trying to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians, Wiccans, atheists, Pr-Choice people, etc. Christians are not exactly “victims” in this country; they have been a privileged group for a long time, and I think they are having some difficulty accepting that they are actually equal to everyone else. Christianity is being “pushed out” of politics and government because it never should have been allowed there to begin with.