The ACLU's agenda.

ITEM: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer for November 4, 2005, in a piece headlined "In many ways, ACLU is back to basics since 9/11," carried an interview with Anthony Romero, executive director off the American Civil Liberties Union. "Romero, 40, talked about the renewed focus on civil liberties in the United States after 9/11 and how that reinvigorated the organization. He also discussed Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, as well as his own background as the ACLU's first Latino and openly gay leader."

ITEM: "The 'intelligent design' movement is et disguised form of religion and should not be taught in public schools, said an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in the freedom of religion," reported the Louisville Courier Journal for November 4. "The attorney; T. Jeremy Gunn, spoke at the Chestnut Centre in downtown Louisville.... Gunn said the intelligent-design movement is rejected by virtually all scientists and is being promoted mainly by some Christians who believe evolution contradicts the Bible."

ITEM: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer for November 4 reported that "interest groups are preparing for an intense year of conflict over Christmas observances by cities and public schools, with one conservative group [the Alliance Defense Fund] lining up hundreds of attorneys to work on the issue. Communities and courts have long fielded protests against municipal creche displays and school Nativity pageants, based on strict views of church-state separation and sensitivity toward religious minorities." An "official ACLU bulletin," the paper notes, "says the Constitution forbids school observances 'that promote or emphasize the religious significance' of Christmas, but not aspects that hove become part of our country's secular culture."

CORRECTION: Make no mistake: if there is anything representing "back to basics" about the ACLU, it assuredly isn't an attempt to promote, say, the American principles of the authors of the Declaration of Independence that focus on God--saying that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Rather, the ACLU is far more likely to continue to align with the views of its founder Roger Baldwin. In 1935, 15 years after he founded the group and with Stalinism in full bloom, Baldwin wrote: "I am for Socialism, disarmament and ultimately, for the abolishing of the State itself.... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

For Illegal Immigrants, Against "Intelligent Design": While Stalin has passed on, the radicals of the ACLU remain busy. It is difficult to find an issue on which the ACLU isn't wrong or subverting the public good.

The ACLU, for instance, favors providing drivers" licenses to illegal aliens and other "rights" for those aliens breaking the laws of this country, while opposing those people who legally protect our borders. As noted by columnist Michelle Malkin in March: "ACLU of Arizona spokesman Ray Ybarra argues that the mere presence of the Minutemen at the border constitutes 'unlawful imprisonment' of illegal (excuse me, 'undocumented') aliens (excuse me, 'migrants')."

Then, there's the teaching of "intelligent design." One might think that a civil-rights group would favor freedom of speech for those taking what some would call an "unpopular" academic stance. When it comes to evolution, however, the legal group stands cheek by jowl with the establishment. The campaign against intelligent design, referenced above, includes major misrepresentations by the ACLU and its media echo chamber, including the claim that there are no scientists affiliated with the theory.

Perhaps the most influential institutional supporter of intelligent design is the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. The institute's Center for Science and Culture says that it "encourages schools to improve science education by teaching students more fully about the theory of evolution, as well as supporting the work of scholars who challenge various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory and scholars who are working on the scientific theory known as intelligent design."

The center notes it has "more than 40 Fellows, including biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, philosophers and historians of science, and public policy and experts, many of whom also have affiliations with colleges and universities. The Center's Director is Dr. Stephen Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University."

More "Rights" for Homosexuals, Polygamists, Child Pornographers" While proclaiming to uphold civil liberties, the group almost invariably supports those positions that undermine traditional values and morality. The ACLU, for example, doesn't back the rights of a private group to choose its own members; indeed, it opposes the Boy Scouts because that group doesn't want homosexual scoutmasters placed in charge of adolescent males.

In the ACLU worldview, homosexuality and polygamy trump traditional marriages. In one recent high-profile case, the group promoted the cause of a homosexual rapist because the law enacted by the state of Kansas, in its view, "discriminated" unfairly against homosexual rapists as opposed to heterosexual rapists.

Polygamy is explicitly defended by the ACLU. This is a point made by Alan Sears and Craig Osten in their book, The ACLU vs. America, which quotes the ACLU Policy Guide: "The ACLU believes that criminal and civil laws prohibiting or penalizing the practice of plural marriage [polygamy or polyamory] violate constitutional protections of freedom of expression and association, freedom of religion, and privacy for personal relationships among consenting adults."

However, if traditional Christians or Jews, for example, defend their faith and promote moral behavior, the ACLU (and its handmaidens in the media) call that proselytizing and demand it be ended. By these upside-down standards, those promoting traditional morality become the ones who are promoting "conflict" (as in the article cited above). Meanwhile, in California, writes Chris Banescu, "the ACLU boldly undermined parental authority by requiring mandatory attendance of school children in 'tolerance-building and diversity education programs' rife with homosexual propaganda and misinformation."

The ACLU also contends, contrary to law and common sense, that the First Amendment protects the distribution of child pornography, maintaining that there should be no government restrictions on its distribution, sale, and use by pedophiles. As noted by Alan Sears, the former director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, who is now president of the Alliance Defense Fund: no matter "how much one is offended by this and other forms of the vilest pornography imaginable, the ACLU says the government cannot take any action that could protect any citizen from unwanted exposure. Ironically, this is the same ACLU which claims that offended persons must be forcefully protected by them in court from the dreaded public display of the Ten Commandments or Christmas."

Campaigning Against Public Christianity: Symbols related to Christianity seem to draw the particular ire of the ACLU. Last year, for instance, the "civil liberties" group demanded that a small cross be stricken from the seal of Los Angeles County, a representation of the missionaries who founded the region. Unwilling to take on expensive litigation, the county knuckled under.

Any celebration of Christmas in the public square is anathema to the ACLU. Yet, when schools encourage observances of Kwanzaa, Ramadan, or Hanukkah, its silence is often deafening. As pointed out in The ACLU vs. America: "Public school officials are afraid to say, 'Merry Christmas,' ... for fear of an ACLU lawsuit. Many people are afraid to talk openly and publicly about their sincerely held religious beliefs in their workplaces because of tear of legal action against them."

The true allegiances and agenda of the ACLU, which has been undermining America for 90 years, should be obvious by now.