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Chris Field- Contributor
Chris
Field is Editor of Human
Events Online [go
to Field index]
TWO
CENTS
 ACLU
Changes Its Website
Chalk This One Up as Win for the Good Guys...
[Chris Field] 2/1/05
Two weeks
ago in
this space I wrote a column titled "The
ACLU's Very Own Constitution." In it I commented upon an
item that I first saw in a "Best of the Web" column by
the Opinion Journal's James Taranto.
The subject of the
piece was how the ACLU had distorted, edited, "censored" the
1st Amendment on its website in order to support its claim that
the Framers considered the freedom of speech so important that
they put it at the very tip-top of the Bill of Rights.
But now the
ACLU has changed its website and completely erased the traces
of the
old, misleading site -- including all "cached" versions.
However, we here at Human
Events saved
a copy of the original
page (link is to a pdf copy of the original page).
The language at the
top of the ACLU's "Free Speech" page
at the time of my column read exactly as follows:
"It is probably
no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned
in the First Amendment: 'Congress shall
make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,
or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution's framers believed
that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks
of a democratic society."
As anyone who has
read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is aware, the "first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is
that of religion. In the ACLU's 1st Amendment quotation, the
freedom of religion is erased, replaced with ellipses. The only
reason that the ACLU found that the "freedom of speech is
the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is that
it cut out the 1st Amendment's two clauses regarding religion.
Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:
"Congress shall
make no law RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING
THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances."
After the original
posting of "The ACLU's Very Own Constitution," the
ACLU changed its website. In place of the distortion of the 1st
Amendment on the "Free Speech" page was the following,
slightly, but significantly updated and altered text:
"It is no accident
that freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment
of the Bill of Rights: 'Congress shall
make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,
or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution's framers believed
that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks
of a democratic society."
The ACLU still didn't mention the freedom of religion in its
quotation of the first item of the Bill of Rights, but at least
the site wasn't utterly wrong.
And now,
in an action that has been taken over just the last couple
of days, the
ACLU's "Free Speech" page has
been updated to include the ENTIRE 1st Amendment.
Call this one a win for the good guys -- the ACLU is still be
the Leftist organization it has come to be known as, but at least
it has been forced to stop this specific distortion of the Bill
of Rights. tOR
copyright
2005 Human Events
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