Posted on 06/24/2004 11:13:36 AM PDT by RonF
...
We tell you all this to lend the property authority to a column [Phyllis Schafly} wrote this week abut the American Civil Liberties Union. In "ACLU finds pot of gold at the foot of the Cross," she clears away the self-righteous underbrush the ACLU has been growing as it invokes the First Amendment in its attacks on the religious community and America's traditions. It's not the First Amendment, she says; it's the money.
"The reason that the Los Angeles County seal is such a big deal is not because it is a violation of the First Amendment. It is because there is a pot of gold hidden under it attracting the ACLU like honey attracts bees.
"A little-known 1976 federal law called the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act enables the ACLU to collect attorneys' fees for its suits against crosses, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Ten Commandments.
"This law was designed to help plaintiffs in civil rights cases. But the ACLU is using it for First Amendment cases, asserting that it is a civil right not to see a cross or the Ten Commandments."
Recent letter writers to the Daily Press have wondered where the ACLU gets its financial backing. One suggested that it was from "liberals (largely Democrats) who back the actions of the ACLU in promoting an ultra-liberal agenda. All of the ACLU's funds come from donations by their members/supporters."
Schlafly begs to differ. And then she lists the money the ACLU collected for recent litigation.
• The most famous Ten Commandments monument case is the one in the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala., installed by former Chief Justice Roy Moore and ordered removed by a Carter-appointed federal judge. As their reward for winning its removal, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center collected $540,000 in attorney's fees and expenses from Alabama taxpayers.
• Kentucky taxpayers have handed over $121,500 to pay the ACLU for its action against the Ten Commandments display outside its state capitol. Taxpayers in one Tennessee county had to pay $50,000 to the ACLU for the same "offense."
• The ACLU profited enormously, collecting $790,000 in legal fees, plus $160,000 in court costs, as a result of its suit to deny the Boy Scouts of America the use of San Diego's Balboa Park for a summer camp, a city facility the Scouts had used since 1915. The ACLU argued that the Boy Scouts must be designated a "religious organization" because it refuses to accept homosexual scoutmasters, and because the Scouts use an oath "to do my duty to God and my country."
(Excerpt) Read more at vvdailypress.com ...
This should be required reading for the entire nation!
Ping!
Thanks for the post. Time to write congress.
what is wrong with a republican congress that it can't close that loop hole?
OK, if we get that bill passed, and the ACLU must depend on DONATIONS to exist, will it fold like Air America?
(we can only hope)
Good freaking question. Could it be that a whole bunch of them are lawyers? Could it be the trial lawyers association with lot and lots of free money? Hummmmmmm let me see.
AMEN. Here's our chance to dry up one of the ACLU's sources by contacting our reps - most probably have never even heard of it. It's election year and these bozos HAVE to listen to you.
Hostettler's bill to correct this is
HR 3609 Public Expression of Religion Act of 2003
The full name of the code he is trying to correct is found in
Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 (42 U.S.C.A. § 1988)
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