DOES THE ACLU DO MORE GOOD OR MORE HARM?

Again tell me what civil rights are being violated by a historical county seal?

But nevertheless, it is an unnecessary and frivolous suit and should never be allowed to stand.

This is the $64 question for many of you. You say "With all the money and resources the ACLU has in its arsenal, it's practically impossible to stop them". Yes, the ACLU seems to have unlimited funding and resources. But they do not have the majority of Americans on their side. And more importantly, they do not have God. This is a battle of David vs. Goliath. And we know who wins in the end.

Remember, this is the site where YOU can have an active role with us and it's more than just your money and signing our petitions, though these are very important as well.

So for all you questioners, skeptics, doubting Thomases, etc., here's the battle plan of how we are working and will be working to stop the ACLU. Pay particular attention to point 9.

By Congressional action. As many of you know, the ACLU collects our tax dollars from cities, counties and states in cases of adverse rulings in items such as removing 10 Commandments' plaques and displays and religious symbols from from city logos.

As noted on our home page, our friend Craig McCarthy of Court Zero created a petition that, if legislatively enacted, would defund the ACLU in such rulings. Any judgments would be solely injunctively, meaning the ACLU could get a favorable ruling on the 10 Commandments and their removal but they could not collect taxpayer money for their legal fees as part of the judgment, meaning the ACLU would have to cut the litigation or "continue to work for free", if you will.

The petition, found at the Court Zero web site, is in conjunction with Indiana Congressman John Hostettler's legislation, HR 2679. For more details, visit the home page and scroll down to the section on this page...

9. By specifically targeting ACLU donors (Operation Recall). In many of the ACLU's annual reports by state, they list their big contributors - anywhere from $100 and on up. Believe it or not, there are doctors giving in excess of $25,000 annually to the ACLU. Now some of these doctors may be abortionists but we don't think they all are. These people need to be located and educated by the Coalition and you.

This will be a formidable task but one we must take up. The ACLU is reported to have appr. 400,000 members nationally. It is our goal to pry at least 10% of them away. Some of them, I believe, would likely cease their support if they knew the ACLU's positions like on abortion, pornography, same sex marriage and NAMBLA. We must try to locate them, their wealthy doctors and others via Internet searches and other means to educate them and encourage them to discontinue their memberships. Some we will find, some we won't. But we will use every resource at our hands to locate them and send them letters to bring the ACLU's agenda to their attention.

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

Foxfyre wrote:

Again tell me what civil rights are being violated by a historical county seal?

Arguably, freedom from religion. Without claiming any expertise beyond that of an interested layman, it seems to me that federal courts would decide this with the same test it applied earlier this year in the two cases where the government displayed the ten commandments in front of the Texas Supreme Court in Houston, and in an exhibition in some cout in the midwest I think. If I remember correctly, the pertinent test is whether a reasonable non-Christian observer would feel left out by the government, less welcome than a Christian citizen would be. On the face of it, applying this test, I think this city logo would pass -- but it's not a slam dunk. Anyway, if you think it isn't a big deal in terms of civil rights anyway, a simple solution suggests itself: Just have the mayor start up MS Paint, draw a new seal, and be done with it. It's not as if the change of symbolism would harm anyone, right?

You are being intentionally specious, right? And yes, I think it is a HUGE deal in civil rights--the rights of the people to determine what their culture, historical remembrances, mores, art, music, etc. will be. If you can show me anyplace in the Constitution that feelings are a valid reason for laws of any kind, please do so. Surely even you can see how making laws so that everybody is happy or feels good would be ridiculous. If somebody has a right not to feel excluded, why wouldn't we all have a right to be included? You want to be in charge of making sure that happens? At any rate the history of the area does include everybody. If the Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus had played any part in the history or culture of the area, it would be most appropriate to include that on historical artwork. But they didn't. The seal depicts the role the Spanish friars had in first populating the area and how the old historic church, the only church, was the focal point of the community for generations serving at different times as community center, hospital ward, soup kitchen, sanctuary et al as well as the religious center of the community.

You honestly think a bucket of paint would be all that is required to change a seal that nobody in the town wants to change? The seal would have to be changed on stationary, documents, promotional materials--tourism is a huge business in New Mexico--websites, flags, buildings, and county vehicles.

Foxfyre wrote:

But nevertheless, it is an unnecessary and frivolous suit and should never be allowed to stand.

That this is an unnecessary and frivolous suit is a legal opinion on your part that you have not backed up with any legal argument so far. If you don't want Debra to point that out to you, you may want to consider offering a legal argument -- or not offering confident opinions about the law.

If you agree with judicial decisions, then the judges are right; if you disagree with judicial decisions, then the judges are wrong. You make no effort to support any of your assertions by reference to actual facts or actual law.

So sorry I disappoint you, Debra. I am not an attorney and no doubt look at these things from a different perspective than you do. A sense of right and wrong, irregardless of legal schmeegle, comes to mind. But enlighten me. If you disagree with a judicial decision, then the judge is right? That's really amazing.

Nevertheless, your concern for the Village's ostensible financial hardship to defend its seal or logo in its present form is misplaced. The WorldNetDaily reports: "The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-religious-liberty organization, has agreed to represent the municipality." It seems odd that a pro-religious organization would be interested in defending an allegedly religious-neutral city seal or logo that merely depicts the regional history.

Well hallelujah. I had not heard that. But thank goodness somebody has the cojones to help the little guy fight back on this nonsense. It doesn't seem odd to me that a pro-religious organization would have an interest in seeing that all religious cultural and historical heritage is not stripped from every public venue in the country which seems to be the intent of some. Some of us actually think it would be a grave loss for the public, regardless of their religious beliefs, to be denied the great religious art--to wit Da Vinci, Michaelangeolo, et al--and all the great religious music from the classical period forward, or all the wonderful old church buildings currently on historical registers and receiving public funding to preserve them.

The Constitution becomes a meaningless piece of paper if the government may violate individual civil rights protected by the Constitution with impunity. Congress enacted 42 U.S.C. § 1988 to ameliorate the disparity of power between an offending government body and the victim of a civil rights violation. By federal law, Congress provided both a financial incentive for attorneys to represent persons in the vindication of their civil rights and a financial disincentive for government bodies to violate civil rights.

Again tell me what civil rights are being violated by a historical county seal? What personal risk is involved? What property is being violated or put at risk? Who is unable to pursue happiness or earn a living or is incurring any other loss due to an artistic rendition of the religious history of the area? Who is being required to genuflect when a county truck rolls by or who is being required or rewarded to believe anything other than what they already believe?

If the Village, a government entity, intends to defend its official seal against a constitutional challenge, then the Village is well aware that a potential legal loss on the issue would subject the Village to financial liability for the opposing party's attorney fees. It appears that the Village has determined to assume the financial risk of losing in court.

And if there is any justice in the world, the Village will prevail. The injustice is that the Village has to assume a financial risk to defend its county seal. Once the suit is filed, the City loses even if it capitulates because it is no small cost to change the seal wherever it appears. If the ACLU had to pay the Village its costs if the Village prevailed, it would even things up at least some. But nevertheless, it is an unnecessary and frivolous suit and should never be allowed to stand.

The seal depicts the role the Spanish friars had in first populating the area and how the old historic church, the only church, was the focal point of the community for generations serving at different times as community center, hospital ward, soup kitchen, sanctuary et al as well as the religious center of the community.

Las Cruces' name (Spanish for "the crosses") has been a disputed topic amongst historians. The most common theory is that in 1830, there was an Apache massacre of a party of nine travelers, including a Mexican Army General, a priest, and five choir boys. Only one choir boy survived the massacre, and buried the other, marking the graves with crosses. The area became known as "El Pueblo del Jardín de Las Cruces."

Crosses have not always appeared on the city's seal. The original city logo consisted of a cluster of grapes. The three crosses were adopted in the 1940s and the current logo - three crosses outlined by the sun - was adopted in 1975.

I was talking about the Tijeras seal in the previous post, not Las Cruces. Las Cruces can probably defend itself though not as adequately as can say Santa Fe or Corpus Christi or St. Paul, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and many other large cities with religous based names. If the City can call itself by a religious name, doesn't it seem incongruous that there can be no religious symbol of any kind on any government entity, document, flag, logo, or seal?

The logo was designed in 1973 when the village incorporated," said Village Clerk Estefanie Muller.

I don't know when the seal was adopted but it has certainly been there since well before we moved to this area in the early 1980's. And it doesn't matter when the seal was adopted. The principle here is whether a village, town, city, county, state, or the nation can incorporate a broad sampling of its culture, history, and traditions into mottos, seals, artwork, etc. Considering the profound role that religion has played in all of that, to exclude it would be ludicrous.

But nevertheless, it is an unnecessary and frivolous suit and should never be allowed to stand.

That this is an unnecessary and frivolous suit is a legal opinion on your part that you have not backed up with any legal argument so far. If you don't want Debra to point that out to you, you may want to consider offering a legal argument -- or not offering confident opinions about the law.

Again I am not an attorney and frankly don't think one is required to include legal opinions in order to discuss principles, so I'll leave those to you and Debra to expound on and impress each other. I have this weird idea that I can judge right and wrong and even talk about it without having to back it up with a legal opinion. I'm sure you profoundly disagree with that, and frankly sir, I don't care.

.....the population [of Las Cruces, NM] is now just under 80,000....

You're not talkin' to me are ya, blatham? Fluffs hair, pat pat. If you are, yes, permanent move, in which I am in the throes. Thwap, take that, thwap!!! Pack, hurry up, sell, fix, sell... thwap, pack!!!!

I admire fbaezer up the kazoo but we don't just talk back and forth.