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Posted on 01/29/2005 12:36:56 PM PST by freepatriot32
American Legion National Commander Thomas Cadmus recently called on government officials to "stand up to the ACLU," fueling a firestorm of protest against fanatical in terrorem litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Boy Scouts, the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial and every public expression of America's religious history and heritage.
The call from the Legion's top official came in a blistering public denunciation of the Defense Department announcement that it would order military units worldwide not to sponsor Boy Scout troops, a partial surrender to an ACLU lawsuit filed in Illinois in 1999. Cadmus asked publicly, "What are the courts doing? ... Where is the outrage?"
The public generally does not know the ACLU is profiting in such cases by millions of dollars in taxpayer-paid "attorney fee awards" authorized under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code Sec. 1988.
While the law was paved with good intentions - to ensure legitimate victims of civil-rights violations could obtain representation - it has been exploited by the ACLU in First Amendment "establishment of religion clause" cases in which there are, in fact, no attorney fees incurred by the ACLU or its plaintiffs, who appear to be "mascot plaintiffs" with de minimis claims like "Oh my God, I saw a cross!"
Elected and appointed officials at the local, state and federal levels have been literally terrorized from standing up to the ACLU in fear of enormous attorney fees being imposed by unelected judges not answerable to the taxpayers. As far as is known, not a single American judge has had the courage to exercise discretion to deny attorney fees to the ACLU under 42 U.S. Code 1988, which is the sole authority for awarding attorney fees.
Delegates at the National Convention 2004 unanimously adopted Resolution 326, "Preservation of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial," which calls on Congress to amend the law and end judges' authority to award attorney fees in cases brought "to remove or destroy religious symbols."
The Department of California sponsored Resolution 326 after a federal court in Riverside, Calif., for the first time allowed the ACLU to pursue a precedent-setting lawsuit to remove a solitary cross at what is now the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial.
That case, Buono v. Norton, illustrates the ACLU's fanaticism and disrespect for veterans, and it exposes the threat of further legal attacks on veterans' memorials by the ACLU or others.
In 1934, a private citizen strapped two pipes together to form a cross and mounted it on a rock outcrop in a remote, privately owned area of the Mojave Desert. The purpose was to honor the service of World War I veterans. President Clinton, as one of his last acts, issued an executive order incorporating the area in the Mojave National Preserve. The ACLU seized on that fact to file a federal suit to remove the cross in 2000. A district court ruled for the ACLU and awarded it more than $40,000 in attorney fees.
Veterans protested, and Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., who represents the area, achieved legislation officially establishing the site as the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial. The legislation authorized an exchange of the 1-acre site for five acres from a private owner, placing the memorial on private land.
However, that did not satisfy the fanatical ACLU. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held the case was "not moot" because the land exchange, although legislatively authorized, was not complete. Further, the court found the lead plaintiff - the first and sole remaining plaintiff - had legal standing to complain of civil-rights injury.
The lead plaintiff, Fank Buono, is a retired Forest Service employee who later moved to Oregon, but claims civil-rights violation and injury because he sees the cross when driving back on visits. ACLU's attorney fee award for representing him was increased to $63,000.
Upon such de minimis dross as this is constitutional law being made by judges, and the ACLU is profiting financially, at taxpayer expense.
They're still at it. The ACLU filed a motion in District Court in December to declare the land exchange unconstitutional, claiming it doesn't comply with the spirit of the injunction.
Other examples of ACLU abuse are multiple, nationwide and glaring:
- The ACLU reaped some $940,000 in settlement from the City of San Diego when it surrendered in ACLU's litigation to kick the Boy Scouts out of Balboa Park. The Boy Scouts are appealing. The American Legion has filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Scouts. - The ACLU received some $500,000 to drive the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse of Alabama Judge Roy Moore, notwithstanding the fact that the same Ten Commandments are on the massive doors and the wall of the U.S. Supreme Court itself. -Portland Public Schools were ordered to pay the ACLU $108,000 in a case brought for an atheist who objected to the Boy Scouts being allowed to recruit during non-class time. At the time of this writing, Portland is considering a complete ban. -The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, over the vigorous objection of Supervisor Michael Antonovich, joined by Supervisor Don Knabe, surrendered on a 3-2 vote to the ACLU's demands that it change the county seal because of a tiny cross in one small panel representing the mission period of its history. The ACLU, exposing its hypocrisy as well as fanaticism, did not demand removal of the central religious figure dominating the seal - "Pomona," the Italo-Roman goddess of poma, i.e. fruits. A citizens' initiative petition is ongoing to place the issue on the ballot and overturn the surrender to the ACLU. -The city council of Redlands, Calif., reluctantly surrendered to the ACLU's demand that it change its city seal to remove a cross, for fear of court-ordered attorney fees to the ACLU.
Simply put, it is clear the ACLU has gone too far, exploiting the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code 1988, to enrich itself and carry out in terrorem litigation to compel surrender to its demands from elected and appointed officials who fear judge-awarded attorney fees.
Claims by ACLU defenders that the organization once did public good in defending free speech, are vitiated by its fanaticism in self-enriching terroristic litigation and self-appointed social engineering in the present.
American Legion National Resolution 326 calls for Congress to reform 42 U.S. Code Sec. 1988 to take the profit out of such terroristic litigation. This can be a powerful weapon in the effort to stop such abuses. It will take a united, determined effort by the American Legion family, other veterans, an aroused citizenry and courageous elected officials.
The legal principles used by the ACLU to sue against the single cross at the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial are applicable to the 9,000 crosses and Stars of David at Normandy, along with those in every national cemetery.
If Congress does not act, nothing in the law will prevent Islamist terrorists in the United States, or their sympathizers, from using the ACLU precedent to sue veterans' memorials or the Boy Scouts, or anyone else over expressions of America's religious history and heritage. And nothing stops the ACLU from collecting millions of taxpayer dollars as attorney-fee awards.
Commander Cadmus has sounded the tocsin. "We are determined to stand up to the ACLU and, as first step, to demand that Congress end the appalling practice of awarding attorney fees in the millions of dollars to the ACLU at taxpayer expense so they can use the courts to destroy American values."
Rees Lloyd, a longtime civil-rights attorney, is past commander of American Legion San Gorgonio Pass Post 428 in Banning, Calif., and the author of Resolution 326. He was an ACLU of Southern California staff attorney for two years after graduating from law school in 1979.
'Where is the outrage?'
DoD's settlement with ACLU launches Legion-led national debate, media barrage.
The American Legion, according to one headline, was "aghast," and the Department of Defense was "humbled," by the American Civil Liberties Union last November. DoD agreed to partially settle a five-year-old lawsuit brought by the ACLU to prohibit sponsorship of Boy Scout programs at U.S. military installations. The settlement, reportedly handled by subordinates of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, came two weeks after attention to values was widely attributed to President Bush's re-election. The agreement ignited a fiery national debate pitting the values of God and country against the constitutional interpretations of the ACLU, whose civil-rights activism was cast by some as a form of "legal terrorism."
In 1999, the ACLU of Illinois sued the DoD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Chicago Board of Education for sponsoring Boy Scout programs because participation includes an oath that has the words, "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…" The Chicago Board of Education soon ceased sponsorship of Scouting activities. DoD was less hasty. The U.S. military sponsors more than 400 Scout units worldwide and supports the national Boy Scouts Jamboree in Virginia to the tune of about $2 million from the Army every four years. The settlement did not address the Jamboree. But the ACLU regards the DoD decision as only "partial."
Swiftly following the announcement, talk-show TV and newspaper editorial pages brimmed with public debate over the DoD's concession. Bloggers soon joined the fray. Five days after the decision, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, 391-3, a non-binding resolution commending the Boy Scouts and condemning legal efforts to restrict government ties to them.
The following is a small sample of public expressions in the days after the decision:
"The idea that sponsorship of Scouting by American military units is 'unconstitutional'goes beyond the absurd, even well past the point of stupidity. How is it the government can fund chapels on military bases, and chaplains in the military, but not accommodate Scouting? How is it the Congress can sanction Scouting by issuing them a federal charter, but the courts can declare them 'outlaws'? "Is there no one in Washington, D.C., at the highest levels of government that will stand up for Scouts, for Scouting and support this movement that has long been an institution of highest reputation in America? Where's the president? Where's his cabinet? Where's the Congress?What are the courts doing? Where is the outrage?" - Letter from American Legion National Commander Thomas P. Cadmus to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, dated Nov. 16, 2004.
As of late December, the secretary had not replied.
"If our Constitution's promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based on religious beliefs." - ACLU lawyer Adam Schwartz
"This highlights more than anything else how rabid the ACLU is about the Scouts. They want to attack the Boy Scouts of America and the Pentagon for supporting the Boy Scouts, and they want to support kids running around naked in the woods." -Bob Bork, national spokesman for Boy Scouts of America, referring to an ACLU lawsuit filed last year in support of a proposed children's nudist camp in Virginia
"What's really happening here is, as we see it, we have young men and women … all over the world, 120 countries, in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting the global war on terrorism with courage and valor. And then we find out the Pentagon caves in to legal terrorism right here in our own United States." - American Legion National Adjutant Robert W. Spanogle, interviewed Nov. 17 on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"
"The new big threat to our civil liberties is a group of 10-year-olds with walking sticks." - Columnist Collin Levey, The New York Post
"The voters of this nation, if it's a choice between expanding NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which the ACLU defended in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of a 10-year-old killed by a member of the association) and preserving the Scouting movement, the voters of America want to defend the Scouting movement … Without a shot being fired, Department of Defense lawyers apparently abandoned the Boy Scouts, threw up their hands and surrendered to the ACLU's latest radical attack on the cherished heritage and values of this nation." - U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., an Eagle Scout
"Is the Department of Defense now going to treat the Boy Scouts as some kind of a pariah organization, not worthy of any kind of support? Being a part of a group, wearing a uniform, accomplishing tasks ... all of these things are conducive to the kind of culture that is endemic in the military. And for a young man to go from Cub Scout to Boy Scout to Eagle Scout to the armed forces, that's a kind of lifetime progression ..." - Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Preparedness
"Many of the men and women in the military who live on these bases have children who may want to be a member of the Boy Scouts. These devoted parents who serve this nation do not make much money as it is, and sadly they are sometimes asked to give their life in defense of freedom … If a base commander decides that the base should sponsor a local chapter of the Boy Scouts for the children of these parents, why should they not be allowed to do so?" - Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., in a letter to President Bush, asking for further investigation into DoD's settlement with the ACLU
"There is fresh evidence that the ACLU intends to end all federal support for the Boy Scouts of America. In their view, where there is government there cannot be faith." - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., after introducing his "Save Our Scouts" bill on Nov. 27 to continue federal support for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
"It is a national security issue. The Department of Defense has conceded to a false and atheistic notion about military conduct. A military that must avoid God upon hearing the wimpy threats of the ACLU is hardly suited to deal with those who would destroy us in the name of Allah." - Eagle Scout and Web columnist Hans Zieger
about military conduct. A military that must avoid God upon hearing the wimpy threats of the ACLU is hardly suited to deal with those who would destroy us in the name of Allah."
AMEN TO THAT!!!
Go get 'em, American Legion. Stune 'em, pave 'em, and dance on the asphalt!
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Homosexual Agenda Ping - long read, haven't had the time to finish it, but definitely good news. Everyone isn't in thrall to the "gay" radical agenda.
Let me and DirtyHarryY2K know if you want on/off this pinglist.
Scout master ping
From one of the Class of 2004 Silver Beaver Recipients.
The Boy Scouts of America.
Thank GOD I belong to both.
Repeal this taxpayer funded pot of gold and see whether the ACLU is driven by principles or money.
This is one more reason to call for the repeal of the "Civil Rights" act.
..agree and while we're @ it. ..Do the same w/ EPA, NEA, Dept. of ED. in all legal cases.
Lord Baden-Powell of England started the Boy Scouts precisely because military recruits were lacking a broad range of basic skills.
The same problem exists today: most boys don't know basic social, outdoors and citizenship skills needed to start military service. 'tis absurd for the US military to NOT defend the Boy Scouts and do everything they can to support it, as those boys make the best recruits.
Repeal the civil rights amendment.
bttt
Scouts Honor
From the Wood Badge Class of 2001, Silver Beaver Class of 2003, Recipient of the Palmetto Award, and proud Scoutmaster of Troop 332, former Army vet, and many other things that I am proud to serve my country before time expires. These things of experience only I have to offer to the young men that will lead our nation, one day.
Bullfrog
Is there an Owl in the house? Back to Gilwell and working my ticket if I can. WE4-11-04. Silver Beaver class of 04.
Just which part of "We don't want our boys spending nights in the woods with homosexuals!!" don't you understand???
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