Bill OReilly ‘Exposes’ the ACLU
I’m going to adress his “expose’ line by line.
Last night, we reported that the Supreme Court of Oregon had ruled 5 to 1 that live sex shows are permitted in that state under the freedom of expression banner. The ACLU and The Oregonian newspaper both filed briefs in favor of that ruling. But why would the ACLU do that? What’s in it for them?
I went to the First Amendment Center to see what they had to say about the case.
The Oregon State Constitution reads a little bit differently than the US Constitution on the concept of free expression:
“No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right.â€
This has been interpreted very liberally by the Oregon courts. Amendments have been suggested, and failed votes of the people (three times in the past eleven years). Which, to me, implies that the majority of the residents of Oregon like the liberal interpretation.
Here’s what the Oregon ACLU had to say
“When people get to decide for themselves and for their families what they want to read, see and hear, that keeps the government out of those decisions,” said David Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon arm of the ACLU.
Yep, live sex shows are permitted in Red State Missouri too:
As the RFT wrote about in 2002 and I blogged about
There’s no outright ban on public sex in Missouri. The law says the conduct must be likely to cause “alarm or affront.”
However, in Missouri individual communities can restrict businesses. And many do. But there are places where if there is appropriate signage warning people before they enter the establishment (eliminating any possible alarm or affront) then everything’s cool.
Mr. OReilly continues:
The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that states and local communities have the right to limit expression. This is the U.S. Supreme court, in a time, place, and manner, application of standards.
And the state was interpreting the state constitution. And voters have so far failed to revise the state constitution. So the majority of people in the state of Oregon, like it the way it is. If this interpretation is the proverbial straw, then the people of Oregon are likely to pass an amendment.
Mr. OReilly continues:
That is, you can’t have sex on your front lawn, even if it’s a personal expression on private property. The Supreme Court realizes the Constitution requires boundaries for what Americans do. If you don’t have boundaries, you have chaos. Thus, community standards and public safety trump personal expression.
Bait and Switch. The Oregon case is all about indoor sex shows, not about sex on the front lawn. And the State Supreme Court decision shows they believe in boundaries. A charge on prostitution stood.
But the ACLU doesn’t believe that. The organization has moved so far left, that now anything goes.
Read what the ACLU representative said above, about people getting to decide for themselves. This suggests, to me, the ACLU favors consensual activity between consensual adults behind closed doors. I see limits there.
Item: The ACLU is defending the North American Man Boy Love Association, saying that although the organization champions the criminal rape of children, it has a right to do that under free expression.
NAMBLA has the right to assemble…just as Neo-Nazis do. The ACLU defends peaceful assembly. Once members of NAMBLA act on what they are discussing, then they are violating the law.
• Item: The ACLU endorses virtual child pornography and has defended the right of people to obtain real child porn.
I have to give him partial credit, in that he doesn’t do what so many do, and say that the ACLU supports child porn. The ACLU draws a distinction between the creation of child porn, which abuses real children, and the ownership of the porn. It’s a fine distinction, and a troubling one. But it’s not a difficult distinction to understand.
Virtual child pornography harms no real children. Prohibiting virtual child porn prohibits a form of expression that has harmed no one in the making, and might provide a non-harmful way for a pedophile to release their sexual energies.
Yes, I agree. It’s sick. If you don’t want to buy it, don’t.
Item: the ACLU opposed the Minutemen protests at the border, obviously, a legititmate form of expression.
The Washington Times (a conservatively slanted newspaper) stated that the ACLU was going to monitor the protests to make sure “no aliens were abusedâ€. This isn’t opposition. This is making sure the protests remained peaceful. The ACLU does support peaceful protests, but not violent ones.
So it seems the ACLU cherry picks its cases. The Minutemen certainly have a right to protest the porous border situation, but the ACLU opposes that expression. — Off the chart hypocritical.
No…the ACLU draws a line between violent and peaceful assembly. Apparently, however, you don’t. You don’t think that NAMBLA has a right to peacefully assemble, but you do feel the Minutemen do. You are basing your support and opposition on content of speech.
So let’s apply the no spin concept to this. The ACLU simply wants a different country, a nation where conduct it approves of, public sexual displays, child molestation literature is allowed. But the ACLU wants to inhibit conduct it disagrees with, like protesting the border and celebrating the birth of Jesus. That’s what’s going on.
The ACLU is pretty consistent. Limits on freedom should begin at the injury of others. The abuse of children is illegal, but the actual pornography once it is made harms no one. What happens between consenting adults behind closed doors is their business.
It is the moralistic Right that wants only conduct it approves of to be allowed. It is the moralistic Right that arrested the comic book salesman for selling an adult comic to an adult, and argued comics are by definition for children, and therefore adult comics don’t have a right to exist. It is the moralistic Right that gets upset when they hear about Wiccan covens in the military, even though they support military Chaplains.
Finally. There is a joke that Abraham Lincoln told which went something like this: if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? When someone answered, ‘five,’ he’d respond: “No, four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.†Bill OReilly talks about no-spin. But he spins just like everyone else.
Now my next comments are directed at our liberal viewers. How can you support a group as nakedly, pardon the pun, radical as the ACLU? This isn’t about freedom. This is about imposing a radical secular progressive agenda on a country that has traditionally voted on public policy issues. If the live sex act initiative was put on the Oregon ballot, it’d be voted down big. Remember, Oregonians voted against gay marriage.
Err, no. Three times in the past eleven years, the Oregon VOTERS rejected constitutional amendments to revise their constitution in this area. Nothing has been imposed upon them which they haven’t accepted. I suspect this decision may lead to another attempt. And if so, the voters will decide.
This is about freedom. The freedom to engage in consensual activity behind closed doors.
It’s also a joke. The founding fathers didn’t write the First Amendment with live sex shows in mind, OK? Everybody understand that? You can easily pervert the Constitution by saying every kind of expression is protected, but again, that would lead to chaos and conflict.
Err, no. The First Amendment has nothing to do with the Oregon court case. They were discussing the Oregon constitution, not the US constitution. As you stated earlier in your piece, if you have forgotten, states and local communities are the ones who set up the limits. Oregon has just gone a little further to the left than you like. OK, don’t move there.
I don’t see the chaos and conflict that arises with the “consensual activity between consensual adults behind closed doors” philosophy. Please, someone, show me the chaos and conflict.
“Talking Points” believes the 400,000 members of the ACLU should wake up and smell the totalitarianism. This organization is bent on undermining freedom, not fighting for it. And everybody should understand that.
I believe the xxxxxx fans of Bill OReilly (and his ilk) should…ditto.
I was in my local dealer’s store yesterday, picking up my latest issues, and I saw 
Jewish law comes from the Torah (aka The Five Books of Moses), recorded several years prior to the Common Era.