posted on October 13, 2003 10:15:19 AM new
The ACLU is neither liberal nor conservative. It is a Constitutional Guardian. It does NOTsupport the "right" to molest children. It does not support the "right" to lynch african Americans. It does not support the "right" to gas jews. It does not support the "right" to pick up a gun and shoot anyone on the street. It does not support the "right" to do drugs and steal to support a habit. It doesn not support the "right of anti-abortion activists to bomb clinics and kill doctors.
It supports the RIGHT of free speech. It supports the RIGHT of us all to say what we believe- however out of the mainstream that may be, it is a Constitutional guarantee.
The UCLA supports the RIGHT of NAMBLA, the KKK, the NAACP, the AntiDefamaion League, and Prolife movement- among many many others- to say what they believe. It does not support the right to act on their beliefs in illegal ways.
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"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
NEW YORK--In the United States Supreme Court over the past few years, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken the side of a fundamentalist Christian church, a Santerian church, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In celebrated cases, the ACLU has stood up for everyone from Oliver North to the National Socialist Party. In spite of all that, the ACLU has never advocated Christianity, ritual animal sacrifice, trading arms for hostages or genocide. In representing NAMBLA today, our Massachusetts affiliate does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children.
What the ACLU does advocate is robust freedom of speech for everyone. The lawsuit involved here, were it to succeed, would strike at the heart of freedom of speech. The case is based on a shocking murder. But the lawsuit says the crime is the responsibility not of those who committed the murder, but of someone who posted vile material on the Internet. The principle is as simple as it is central to true freedom of speech: those who do wrong are responsible for what they do; those who speak about it are not.
It is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive. That was true when the Nazis marched in Skokie. It remains true today.
posted on October 13, 2003 11:41:58 AM new
I don't know how freedom of speech extends to actively encouraging illegal acts. To me speaking as an advocate of child abuse should be the same as actively urging assasination or other criminal conspiracy.
While I think there is often a over reaction in this country when a mother can be arrested as in TN resently for taking topless pics of her four year old in the wading pool, these NAMBA people are not in any gray area - they are way over the line.
And trying to say they belong to any particular race or political persuation is just silly. I don't think anyone has any idea what happens to channel a person into seeing children as objects of sexual desire. I suspect something has to go wrong very early in their development. But if anyone has ever seriously researched it I've never heard of it. It would be so controvercial it might be hard to fund even if the benefits of the knowlege would be great.
Obviously child abusers gravitate to jobs that give them access. But with priests for example - Do they become interested in children because other avenues of sexual expression are closed to them or are they already of that mind when they decide to become priests?
Abstinence may sound like a moral ideal but it would appear like it simply does not work for most normal human beings without something bending or breaking in their mental health.
Most of those that advocate it seem a little warped to me already. You see how well it worked for the Shakers.
[ edited by gravid on Oct 13, 2003 11:48 AM ]
