A Quote by Russell Kirk
The ACLU has been able to harass out of existence public expressions of faith.
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Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. "The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this," he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for "throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools." This is a familiar charge and a false one. God is still present in the public schools, where students are free to pray, alone or in groups, so long as their prayers aren't officially sponsored and don't infringe on anyone's freedom not to pray.
Thanks in large measure to the ACLU, the belief that there is a wall of separation between faith and state, not just church and state, is endemic. The exercise of religious faith in the public square is not prohibited; only the federal imposition of a particular faith. Hardly anyone any longer knows the difference.
The ACLU's record, far from showing a momentary wavering from impartiality, is replete with attemps to reform American society according to the wisdom of liberalism. The truth of the matters is that the ACLU has always been a highly politicized organization.
The ACLU spent this entire holiday season protesting public displays of the nativity scene. Yeah, that's the problem with America right now: Public displays of Christ's birth, that's the problem. It's unbelievable to me. The ACLU will no longer fight for your right to put up a nativity scene, but they'll fight for the right of the local freak who wants to stumble onto the scene and have sex with one of the sheep.
Sören Kierkegaard has another answer: human existence is possible as existence not in despair, as existence not in tragedy; it is possible as existence in faith... Faith is the belief that in God the impossible is possible, that in Him time and eternity are one, that both life and death are meaningful.
For most mothers, vaccinations become a matter of faith - faith in pharmaceutical companies, faith in public health officials - and I think there's been an erosion of faith.
Faith in public life does not mean that God tells you to bomb another country or to go get Saddam Hussein. Faith in public life means that every child, regardless of their religious belief, should have health care and be able to go to school. Because my faith saying I can bomb Iraq is the same as your faith saying you can take over a passenger plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.
Stephen L. Carter coined the phrase 'the culture of disbelief' to describe the prevailing hostility in Western culture toward public expressions of faith.
Suicide is the means of men whose resilience has been eaten away by rust, the rust of the daily round. They were born for action, but they have delayed their action; so action turns back on them with the swing of a pendulum. Suicide is an act, the act of those who have not been able to accomplish others. It is an act of faith, like all acts. Faith in one’s neighbor, in the existence of one’s neighbor, in the reality of the self and the other selves.
The ACLU is an organization with a long and distinguished history of fighting to protect freedom of speech. On the other hand, in recent years, it has carried its mandate to ever more eccentric and often highly destructive lengths. While is may have been perfectly honorable for Dukakis to belong to the ACLU, it was equally legitimate for Bush to attack him for it. And with what enormous relish he did the job!
Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.
The ACLU sues no matter what public property a religious symbol is placed on.
From a personal perspective, because I'm on a watchlist and went through years of trying to find out why, of having the government refuse to confirm or deny the very existence of such a list, it's so meaningful to have its existence brought into the open so that the public knows there is a watchlist, and so that the courts can now address the legality of it. I mean, the person who revealed this has done a huge public service and I'm personally thankful.
Of course, my faith has a lot to do with being able to be public without being a public nuisance.
If there is anything that the ACLU hates more than censorship, it is any form of public religious expression.
Of course, certain religious expressions are fine. If a tribe of Aqualishes wants to boil rhino horns in frog saliva on the National Mall to honor their deity, we'd have a commemorative postage stamp ready by next December. But let a Christian mention the baby Jesus to a kindergarten class and the ACLU wants an exorcism.
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