I’m happily surprised to learn that the ACLU came to his defense.
Don't be. The ACLU occasionally picks out a case like this so they can keep up appearances that they are simply interested in upholding the Constitution instead of being a left-wing legal good squad. Just because you do the right thing 10% of the time doesn't excuse the other 90%.
‘Im happily surprised to learn that the ACLU came to his defense’
clearly, this is their TOKEN case