By William R Alford - Dec.20, 2003
Does the U.S. Constitution protect free speech and allow people to organize based upon a common value system? Given the American Civil Liberty Union?s actions, the answer apparently depends upon who is involved and what values are promoted.
The ACLU is litigating on many fronts against the Boy Scouts of America because it excludes homosexuals as members or leaders and ejects existing ones if found to be homosexual. The ACLU is also defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a wrongful death lawsuit consequent to an October 1997 murder in Massachusetts.
Promising a new bicycle [to replace the one some say they stole], according to CNN reports, Salvatore Sicari and Charles Jaynes enticed 10-year-old Jeffrey Curly into their vehicle.
Trial records reveal that the men -- both in their mid 20s at the time -- tried to sexually assault Jeffrey, who resisted. Sicari and Jaynes used a gasoline-soaked rag to gag the boy, who then suffocated to death. The men then sexually desecrated Jeffrey?s corpse. Police later recovered Jeffrey?s concrete-encased body from a nearby river. Sicari and Jaynes are serving life prison terms for first and second-degree murder respectively. Massachusetts has no death penalty.
The Curley?s are reportedly baffled at how their hometown of Cambridge would erect memorials to slain local homosexuals and that Sen. Edward Kennedy would express shock at Matthew Shepard?s 1998 murder, yet have nothing to say about their boy?s death at the hands of homosexual pedophiles.
Jeffrey?s parents successfully sued the convicted killers and were awarded $328 million in the spring of 2000. In July of the same year, their attorney Larry Frisoli announced a class-action lawsuit against NAMBLA. The case is still in litigation. If successful, parents could collect damages from NAMBLA if their members are convicted of child sexual abuse. Frisoli is also representing the Curleys in a separate case, seeking $200 million in damages.
The ACLU has agreed to undertake NAMBLA?s legal defense. ?For us, it is a fundamental First Amendment case,? Massachusetts branch executive director John Roberts told the Boston Globe. ?It has to do with communications on a website, and material that does not promote any kind of criminal behavior whatsoever.?
In preliminary hearings, the Curley?s lawyer showed that Jaynes possessed NAMBLA materials including photographs of boys and ?eroticized depictions of young boys? that, according to official ACLU statements, are ?constitutionally protected speech.?
Explaining NAMBLA?s position on adult-child sex, an essay on its website entitled ?Teaching Sexuality? acknowledges ?children are at our mercy.? It argues, however, that having adults not teach them about sex would be an irresponsible abdication of responsibility. This would make ?about as much sense to leave children's sexual nourishment to their peers as it would to assume that the mud pies they make for each other are an adequate lunch.?
NAMBLA goes on to contend that such education must include ?inter-generational? sex to be effective: ?If we accepted sexual behaviour between children and adults, we would be far more able to protect our children from abuse and exploitation than we are now. They would be free to tell us, as they can about all kinds of other experiences, what is happening to them and to have our sympathy and support instead of our mute and mistrustful terror.?
In court briefs filing for dismissal, an ACLU attorney wrote, ?examination of the materials that have been identified by the plaintiffs will show that they simply do not advocate violation of the law. But even if that were the case, speech is not deprived of the protection of the First Amendment simply because it advocates an unlawful act.?
One lawful act that the ACLU does not consistently condone ? free association based upon a common value system -- has been practiced by the Boy Scouts of America since 1916. BSA has always excluded homosexuals and required Christian values adherence. Thus atheists, Hindi, neopagans, Buddhists, Unitarians (and homosexuals as well) are among those whom the BSA have consistently excluded.
In the 2000 BSA v. Dale case, the U.S. Supreme Court determined BSA?s ?adult leaders inculcate its youth members with its value system.? The Justices ruled that forcing BSA to accept homosexual leaders would ?significantly affect? its ability to instill long-standing ideals. The Court noted that BSA ?asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent? with its core values and upheld that the boys organization should not be forced to ?promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.?
The Supreme Court further determined that state laws regarding public accommodation ?run afoul the Scouts? freedom of expressive association.? The state ?may not interfere with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened either purpose may seem.?
Joining the backlash that greeted this ruling, the ACLU has participated in numerous cases throughout the country seeking to make it increasingly difficult for the Boy Scouts to operate locally. A secondary goal is to drain BSA?s resources via litigation. The ACLU is thus challenging BSA?s federal charter, tax-exempt status and is seeking to deny use of many local venues in which to hold Scouting activities.
The ACLU is suing on behalf of a Methodist minister in Chicago, objecting to religious endorsement and a homosexual agnostic hoping to volunteer as leader of a BSA-led youth program. In this case, the ACLU also objects to the BSA?s requirement to recite the Scout Oath, specifically because it includes pledges to God and Country.
Jeffrey Curley?s parents? attorney has found witnesses who are prepared to testify that the adult-child sex advocacy group does more than promote age-of-consent law revocation.
Better A Millstone Inc. described NAMBLA in an AP-reported court affidavit as ?a quasi school for training its members on how to profile children.? NAMBLA members exchange advice on how to gain children?s confidence well enough to lure them into sexual encounters while avoiding parents and/or police.
A policeman who infiltrated NAMBLA?s leadership revealed in another affidavit that a member offered to arrange a sexual encounter with a boy. ACLU unsuccessfully petitioned the court to have this and other similar testimony disallowed and to place Jeffrey Curley?s parents under gag order.
?Why don't they just start their own homosexual scouting group?? asked Traditional Values Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon in a recent editorial, rather than try and force the BSA to conform to an emerging secular orthodoxy? Save our Scouts is currently leading a campaign to defend BSA and expose its enemies? motives.
In a Manchester Union Leader editorial, Bernadette Malone Connolly asks: If the ACLU is willing to defend NAMBLA?s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and association, why is the vaunted civil rights legal defense organization attacking the Boy Scouts for asserting the same rights?
Apparently the ACLU considers the BSA?s homosexual exclusion to be more threatening to boys in particular and society in general than NAMBLA?s child-adult sex advocacy.
Does the U.S. Constitution protect free speech and allow people to organize based upon a common value system? Given the American Civil Liberty Union?s actions, the answer apparently depends upon who is involved and what values are promoted.
The ACLU is litigating on many fronts against the Boy Scouts of America because it excludes homosexuals as members or leaders and ejects existing ones if found to be homosexual. The ACLU is also defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a wrongful death lawsuit consequent to an October 1997 murder in Massachusetts.
Promising a new bicycle [to replace the one some say they stole], according to CNN reports, Salvatore Sicari and Charles Jaynes enticed 10-year-old Jeffrey Curly into their vehicle.
Trial records reveal that the men -- both in their mid 20s at the time -- tried to sexually assault Jeffrey, who resisted. Sicari and Jaynes used a gasoline-soaked rag to gag the boy, who then suffocated to death. The men then sexually desecrated Jeffrey?s corpse. Police later recovered Jeffrey?s concrete-encased body from a nearby river. Sicari and Jaynes are serving life prison terms for first and second-degree murder respectively. Massachusetts has no death penalty.
The Curley?s are reportedly baffled at how their hometown of Cambridge would erect memorials to slain local homosexuals and that Sen. Edward Kennedy would express shock at Matthew Shepard?s 1998 murder, yet have nothing to say about their boy?s death at the hands of homosexual pedophiles.
Jeffrey?s parents successfully sued the convicted killers and were awarded $328 million in the spring of 2000. In July of the same year, their attorney Larry Frisoli announced a class-action lawsuit against NAMBLA. The case is still in litigation. If successful, parents could collect damages from NAMBLA if their members are convicted of child sexual abuse. Frisoli is also representing the Curleys in a separate case, seeking $200 million in damages.
The ACLU has agreed to undertake NAMBLA?s legal defense. ?For us, it is a fundamental First Amendment case,? Massachusetts branch executive director John Roberts told the Boston Globe. ?It has to do with communications on a website, and material that does not promote any kind of criminal behavior whatsoever.?
In preliminary hearings, the Curley?s lawyer showed that Jaynes possessed NAMBLA materials including photographs of boys and ?eroticized depictions of young boys? that, according to official ACLU statements, are ?constitutionally protected speech.?
Explaining NAMBLA?s position on adult-child sex, an essay on its website entitled ?Teaching Sexuality? acknowledges ?children are at our mercy.? It argues, however, that having adults not teach them about sex would be an irresponsible abdication of responsibility. This would make ?about as much sense to leave children's sexual nourishment to their peers as it would to assume that the mud pies they make for each other are an adequate lunch.?
NAMBLA goes on to contend that such education must include ?inter-generational? sex to be effective: ?If we accepted sexual behaviour between children and adults, we would be far more able to protect our children from abuse and exploitation than we are now. They would be free to tell us, as they can about all kinds of other experiences, what is happening to them and to have our sympathy and support instead of our mute and mistrustful terror.?
In court briefs filing for dismissal, an ACLU attorney wrote, ?examination of the materials that have been identified by the plaintiffs will show that they simply do not advocate violation of the law. But even if that were the case, speech is not deprived of the protection of the First Amendment simply because it advocates an unlawful act.?
One lawful act that the ACLU does not consistently condone ? free association based upon a common value system -- has been practiced by the Boy Scouts of America since 1916. BSA has always excluded homosexuals and required Christian values adherence. Thus atheists, Hindi, neopagans, Buddhists, Unitarians (and homosexuals as well) are among those whom the BSA have consistently excluded.
In the 2000 BSA v. Dale case, the U.S. Supreme Court determined BSA?s ?adult leaders inculcate its youth members with its value system.? The Justices ruled that forcing BSA to accept homosexual leaders would ?significantly affect? its ability to instill long-standing ideals. The Court noted that BSA ?asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent? with its core values and upheld that the boys organization should not be forced to ?promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.?
The Supreme Court further determined that state laws regarding public accommodation ?run afoul the Scouts? freedom of expressive association.? The state ?may not interfere with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened either purpose may seem.?
Joining the backlash that greeted this ruling, the ACLU has participated in numerous cases throughout the country seeking to make it increasingly difficult for the Boy Scouts to operate locally. A secondary goal is to drain BSA?s resources via litigation. The ACLU is thus challenging BSA?s federal charter, tax-exempt status and is seeking to deny use of many local venues in which to hold Scouting activities.
The ACLU is suing on behalf of a Methodist minister in Chicago, objecting to religious endorsement and a homosexual agnostic hoping to volunteer as leader of a BSA-led youth program. In this case, the ACLU also objects to the BSA?s requirement to recite the Scout Oath, specifically because it includes pledges to God and Country.
Jeffrey Curley?s parents? attorney has found witnesses who are prepared to testify that the adult-child sex advocacy group does more than promote age-of-consent law revocation.
Better A Millstone Inc. described NAMBLA in an AP-reported court affidavit as ?a quasi school for training its members on how to profile children.? NAMBLA members exchange advice on how to gain children?s confidence well enough to lure them into sexual encounters while avoiding parents and/or police.
A policeman who infiltrated NAMBLA?s leadership revealed in another affidavit that a member offered to arrange a sexual encounter with a boy. ACLU unsuccessfully petitioned the court to have this and other similar testimony disallowed and to place Jeffrey Curley?s parents under gag order.
?Why don't they just start their own homosexual scouting group?? asked Traditional Values Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon in a recent editorial, rather than try and force the BSA to conform to an emerging secular orthodoxy? Save our Scouts is currently leading a campaign to defend BSA and expose its enemies? motives.
In a Manchester Union Leader editorial, Bernadette Malone Connolly asks: If the ACLU is willing to defend NAMBLA?s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and association, why is the vaunted civil rights legal defense organization attacking the Boy Scouts for asserting the same rights?
Apparently the ACLU considers the BSA?s homosexual exclusion to be more threatening to boys in particular and society in general than NAMBLA?s child-adult sex advocacy.
Hey I agree that anyone should be free to burn the American Flag - just don't be surprised if you get your ass kicked.