The American Civil Liberties Union Ohio State Chapter would like to respond to the opinion article in the May 9 newspaper by Ben Schwarzwalder entitled, “Not so civil liberties.” The main point of Schwarzwalder’s article appears to be that the ACLU is defending the civil liberties of only liberals and controversial organizations. The ACLU does not only work to protect “liberals.” The ACLU has been involved with numerous cases that would be considered “conservative issues.”

For example, in 2004 it defended conservative Rush Limbaugh from having his medical records seized by Florida law enforcement. The ACLU protects the Bill of Rights, regardless of the person’s political position. Your example of NAMBLA, North American Man-Boy Love Association is a perfect example of this. The ACLU does not support or condone pedophilia. Pedophilia is irrelevant to the case altogether, because the ACLU is fighting for First Amendment protection, not to support the purpose of the organization. While it may seem ridiculous to protect such an atrocious organization, the line between decency and the First Amendment has to be firmly drawn. The same argument against NAMBLA could be made against any form of media, including song lyrics or movies that criminals claim as the reason that they committed the crime.

The so-called “fact” presented by Schwarzwalder that the ACLU is anti-Christmas is absurd. The ACLU protects freedom of religion and works to ensure that people who follow religions that are in the minority have the right to do so. The ACLU has not had a lawsuit involving other religions because the majority of Americans – 80 percent in fact – follow Christianity, so the ACLU is protecting the other 20 percent of Americans’ freedom of religion. Next time you decide to write an opinion article, Schwarzwalder, we would suggest you do your research instead of just relying on misconceptions to formulate your opinion. Our organization would have been more than happy to meet with you prior to the writing of the article so that the topics could have been discussed but instead you took a cheap shot at our organization. We hope that the general OSU population is more intelligent than you and realizes that your opinion is biased and misinformed.

Danielle SmithPresident, ACLU:OSU