Editorials

Liberal Extortion
07/29/05

Dear Friends:

I think you'll enjoy this article by Gary Bauer.
(formerly of President Reagan's staff)


Liberal Legal Extortion

"The pattern is well established. The ACLU comes in and threatens a local
school or small town with a lawsuit over a prayer at a graduation ceremony
or a copy of the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall. The school
principal or the town mayor must now face the prospect of paying court
costs and the ACLU’s legal fees if they lose the case in court, which is a
very risky gamble given the hostility of our rogue judiciary to religious
freedom issues. (Those legal fees, by the way, have provided the ACLU with
millions of taxpayer dollars!) So the local officials cave in order to
save the taxpayers’ money. Now one pro-family congressman is trying to
stop this liberal legal extortion.

Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana has proposed legislation that would
prohibit the collection of legal fees in cases involving the First
Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which reads: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof...” The ACLU and liberal judges focus only on the first half of
that clause, and they still get it wrong!

Rep. Hostettler has introduced this bill in part because the ACLU of
Indiana is suing to ban prayers that mention the name of Jesus at opening
sessions of the state legislature, claiming that such prayers are
intolerant and ought to be illegal in a public forum.

Don’t be fooled, my friends. The ACLU is not defending religious tolerance
– they are trying to silence all religious expression, starting with
Christian prayers. Men and women of faith should never forget that the
ACLU supported the lawsuit that tried to rip “under God” from our Pledge of
Allegiance; no mention of Jesus there, just God, but that was too much for
the ACLU. Kudos to Rep. Hostettler! With an annual budget in excess of
$40 million, millions of God-fearing taxpayers should not be forced to
subsidize the ACLU’s efforts to secularize America."

I hope that this article awakens us to one of the driving forces behind the ACLU.

Money......

The ACLU files thousands of suits every year across this great country.
They receive attorney fees, often in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, every
time a judge rules in their favor or when the city, county or state government knuckles
under to them and settles the case.

One way to reduce the ACLU's influence is to take away the flow of taxpayers'
hard-earned funds. The second is to make the ACLU pay the other side's attorney's fees
whenever the ACLU loses. Right now the ACLU is playing a risk free game.
All the potential upside of making money with no potential downside.
And who established those rules?

A Democrat controlled Congress.


...something a Republican Congress and President should do something about.


Live Wisely,

Paul Enlow
Former District Judge
State of Texas

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