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Protesters misguided in fears


It continues to astound me the ignorance that abounds on supposed campuses of “learning”.

As I was going over The Pacer I read the ACLU article and the silliness I saw in the photo and read in the article was a bit overwhelming. We’re confronted almost immediately with Dennis Doster’s “brilliant” words, “The reason we are here is because this group talks about standing up for civil liberties but they are not doing what the people want”.

I believe what Mr. Doster SHOULD have said is “they are not doing what the PERCEIVED MAJORITY of people want”. This would have been a more accurate statement. There are many “people” who do not want what the protestors wanted - and they attended Strossen’s speech.

With this sort of panderous rhetoric, it’s confusing as to why Mr. Doster lost his election - this is, certain, what the “people” wanted to hear, was it not?

Many, in this political climate, claim that nothing has changed in terms of civil liberties but I challenge you with this: In the 60’s, protestors gathered to make known their feelings about the President AND the decisions he made. What would happen today if the same thing happened? If the Patriot Act is any indication - the protestors would be arrested for “inciting to violence” and “acts of terrorism”. This instance, and many others, is why the ACLU exists.

The people in the photo have some strange things on their signs, for instance: “Marriage is One Man, One Woman” and “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty”.

What I found interesting about these statements is that no one is arguing that Marriage is “One man, one woman.” The argument is :That a man/woman should have the right to chose the gender of their spouse.

According to the civil right I have to marriage, I can meet a woman for 15 minutes and get married in less than 20 if I can find the nearest court house, but the man that I spent 6 years with is “off-limits” because he happens to be male?

The second statement is astounding because in the context of which the statement is found, the verse is in reference to the liberty of enslaved people and “liberty” is in lower-case and is to be taken in its literal sense.

So many people use Leviticus to condemn homosexuals and plaster it on picket signs, but how many times have we seen protestors outside Red Lobster with Leviticus 11:9-12 (stating that eating shellfish is “an abomination”) plastered all over them?

As for the ACLU and those who do not support them, do they not find the terrible irony inherent in the fact that by exercising their CIVIL LIBERTY to protest the comments of others, they are, indeed, supporting the CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION and their fight to make certain you retain the right to do this?

Perhaps a little more thought should have been put into this “protest”.