From: kasab@luther.che.wisc.edu (Haig Kasab) 
Subject: Re:      Re: Reply from NBC re: Sinead O'Connor
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Madison
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:29:14 CST
Originator: kasab@luther.che.wisc.edu

In article <...> frank lopez <FRANK@125LAW1.LAW.UCLA.EDU> writes:
>> This is as it should be.  No matter what public prayer one allows in school,
>> it is bound to be at odds with someone's understanding of God.
>
>     This statement might be fine if the ACLU was actually trying
>     promote any understanding of God, but they are not.  Their
>     concern is not with promoting any forms of worship, but with
>     keeping them from happening, regardless if the worship happens
>     in a public park or on the front lawns of city hall, and
>     whether they are done by Jews, Christians or Druids, period.

    I can see that you are confused as to the goals of the ACLU.  The
ACLU is an organization that fights to ensure that the rights of all
citizens as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution are not abridged.
Unfortunately, this means that the ACLU takes on some very unpopular
cases, including the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois.  

    The ACLU does not have any problem with worship as long as it occurs on
private property.  However, a worship ceremony of any kind on public
property implies that the government approves of that religion, and may give
it preferential treatment in other areas as well.  

>> Besides no public prayer *doesn't prohibit paryer!*
>     Tell that to the handful of high school kids that tried to have a
>     prayer service, amongst themsleves, before school began and were
>     forcibly removed from the school by armed guards at the command
>     of the school principal.  

    I have heard of similar events occuring.  The problem is that it is not
always clear whether a prayer meeting on school grounds abuses the
mandated separation between the church and the state, and so the principal
was probably struggling with the best solution to a tricky situation.  My
guess would be that the principal had asked the students to refrain from
holding their organized prayer meetings on school grounds before having them
forcibly removed, but this is conjecture on my part, as I have not seen more
details.

     As for your library example, technically, the Egyptian cultist's
meeting should not be held in the library, either, if it is primarily a
religious group.  The Communist Party, as a political organization, is not
covered by the First Amendment's separation clause, and is thus free to meet
in the public library.

    The point of the now-anonymous poster after the >>'s is that anyone can
pray to oneself at any time--during a test, before meals, while commuting to
work, in the shower, even in the voting booth, but the interpretation of the
Constitution is clear on this point:  the state can neither condemn nor
condone any Church.

>     We here have a right to worship publicly by the constitution.
>     The ACLU reads "freedom of religion" as "freedom from religion."

   You have a right to assemble freely, as guaranteed by the First
Amendment.  This does not mean that you have a Constitutional right to
worship publicly.  

>     The ACLU is not a sympathetic group.  They don't care what the
>     majority wants.  They don't even care what the minority want!
>     They only care about the agenda of the ACLU and that is to
>     ultimately cause problems in the smallest of burgs to the
>     grandest of cities and to anger people from those who simply
>     want to worship their Lord in really very humble ways to
>     the Jewish man who would rather have Nazi's remain under the
>     rocks they crawled out from under, than watch them parade in the
>     streets of his city.

    Frank, the ACLU is obviously a sympathetic group for someone in the
United States, and while you may disagree with their views, they are
genuinely interested in preserving your rights to speak out against them.
The ACLU, by its very nature, will tend to take on unpopular positions; for
the popular positions hardly need defending.  The majority works to take
care of its own; it is the minorities that need extra protection to avoid
being oppressed by the majority.

    So, while the Nazis and the Klan have the right to demonstrate, those
who oppose these groups are also able to demonstrate, often at the same
time, even!  Just because a town has always done something a certain way
does not mean that it is Constitutional, Frank.  And often, the ACLU cases
are started as a complaint by a local citizen--the ACLU merely provides the
legal assistance that is often necessary to convince a local government of
the error of their ways.  If this is "causing problems," these are the sorts
of problems I would prefer to be dealing with.
-- 
  Haig Kasab                             Arpanet: kasab@cae.wisc.edu
"Even the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose"  
        _The Merchant of Venice_ I,iii,99
      The NSF and UW--Madison don't speak for me, nor I for them.