# ACLU Fights For Anti-Gay Phelps Clan
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 23, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739 "2006-07-23T20:02:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/1 "2006-07-23T20:02:03Z")
[http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm](http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm)
I’m not mad at the ACLU. I just wanted to link to an article that you can shove down the mouth of the next **muthafrickin’** arsehole who bitches to you that the ACLU is only about the LEFT.
Defending Phelps has to cause them to tighten up their sphincters at night.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/2 "2006-07-23T20:09:24Z")
Trying to tell someone from the right that the ACLU is about defending constitutional rights, not about championing causes, is pretty hopeless. I suspect this would fall under the definition of ‘irony’, in that the party of the right is always yammering about upholding the Constitution. At times it seems like they are, instead, systematically trying to dismantle it, but that’s for another thread.
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### Author:  [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/3 "2006-07-23T20:10:48Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> [http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm](http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm)
>
> I’m not mad at the ACLU. I just wanted to link to an article that you can shove down the mouth of the next **muthafrickin’** arsehole who bitches to you that the ACLU is only about the LEFT.
>
> Defending Phelps has to cause them to tighten up their sphincters at night.
Not really new, though. The ACLU has stood up for the rights of the Phelps clan in the past few years, although I’m not sure if it actually represented the WBC.
As far as other right-wing causes, the ACLU has defended the rights of both the [KKK](http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/23/klan.03/index.html) and [Neo Nazis](http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/strwhe.html) in the past, so this isn’t new either.
I don’t think the ACLU lawyers feel bad at all about it. The whole point of its existence is to protect the rights of miscreants when no one else will. It’s why the group was formed.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/4 "2006-07-23T20:19:41Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> [http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm](http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/07/072306phelps.htm)
>
> I’m not mad at the ACLU. I just wanted to link to an article that you can shove down the mouth of the next **muthafrickin’** arsehole who bitches to you that the ACLU is only about the LEFT.
>
> Defending Phelps has to cause them to tighten up their sphincters at night.
Unfortunately, even with plenty of prior cases where the ACLU defended Christians’ rights re: prayer and carrying a bible, the idea that they’re not some Left-Wing Atheist Conspiracy to Destroy Christianity and the USofA doesn’t take hold, somehow…
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### Author:  [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/5 "2006-07-23T20:26:37Z")
Well good for the ACLU.
That said, I want every one of the Phuckers to come down with a terminal case of butt cancer.
And my favorite quote from the linked story has to be:
> [@](#):
>
> I told the nation, as each state went after these laws, that if the day came that they got in our way, that we would sue them. . .At this hour, the wrath of God is pouring out on this country."
From Shirley Phelps-Roper. Silly twit, it’s not God on your side, it’s the ACLU, the same organization that your twisted self has denounced previously.
Just smell the irony.
-Waste
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/6 "2006-07-23T20:31:58Z")
I know, I know.
But in my heart of hearts, I always hope that I can find just one person who says, “Sumbitch! I always thought the ACLU was Leftist. Thanks for giving me some evidence otherwise.”
Of course, I’m part idealist, part cynic. Sorry for letting my idealist out.
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/7 "2006-07-23T20:34:14Z")
> [@GLWasteful](#):
>
> And my favorite quote from the linked story has to be:From Shirley Phelps-Roper. Silly twit, it’s not God on your side, it’s the ACLU, the same organization that your twisted self has denounced previously.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
---
### Author:  [@Lambo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lambo)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/8 "2006-07-23T20:39:42Z")
Wait a minute–why is the ACLU spending their hard-earned money on THIS case? My understanding, from various hate-watch organization websites, is that Phelps, and many of his spawn, are lawyers, and that Phelps was, at one point before the crazy, a civil rights lawyer (I believe I read this on the Southern Poverty Law Center site). In fact, when a place I worked at was targeted by WBC, I attended a meeting where we were told to not respond to their taunts at all, and definitely not to get close enought to touch, because they love to bring civil cases for that (not sure what the claim would be, though).
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### Author:  [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/9 "2006-07-23T20:46:46Z")
[Below is the case I’ve offered](http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12828prs20030221.html) the past three Decembers when I hear ranting about the ACLU being a bunch of God-hating leftists out to destroy the “Reason For The Season”\*:
> [@](#):
>
> ACLU of MA Defends Students Punished for Distributing Candy Canes with Religious Messages (2/21/2003)
>
> NORTHAMPTON, MA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts today asked a federal district court in Springfield to protect the First Amendment rights of high school students who were disciplined by school officials for distributing candy canes with religious messages just before Christmas.
- That phrase is due another pit thread.
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### Author:  [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/10 "2006-07-23T20:46:48Z")
This thing has the stink of an “ACLU (Doesn’t) Lean Left Debate,” nothing BBQ-uey about it.
Now, a “Fuck the Phelps”-type rant would be more like it, though I’m sure that such a thread exists somewhere here abouts, if one were to check threads opened near the dates of media coverage of the Phelps “protesting” at US funerals of servicemen, as well as “protesting” at Walter Reed.
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### Author:  [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/11 "2006-07-23T20:52:08Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> I know, I know.
>
> But in my heart of hearts, I always hope that I can find just one person who says, “Sumbitch! I always thought the ACLU was Leftist. Thanks for giving me some evidence otherwise.”
>
> Of course, I’m part idealist, part cynic. Sorry for letting my idealist out.
If you’re talking about most people I know (from other message boards), I honestly believe the reply you’d actually get would be more like:
But, don’t you see, the ACLU is only in this because Lefties hate the military! They _want_ people to be able to picket the funerals of veterans because they hate veterans and the USA!
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/12 "2006-07-23T21:18:50Z")
> [@cerberus](#):
>
> This thing has the stink of an “ACLU (Doesn’t) Lean Left Debate,” nothing BBQ-uey about it.
I thought that I’d open it in the Pit as I made an assumption that it would wind up there. I could have been incorrect and would hope a moderator would move it as being in the wrong forum.
As to my thread having a “stink”–You could be right. But I don’t see a point of debate. The ACLU, IMHO, is neutral.
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### Author:  [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/13 "2006-07-23T21:24:22Z")
Understood. I took the OP premise as a response to people who believe that the ACLU swings left. Any such debate would be along the lines of: _Be it resolved that the ACLU is not politically neutral_.
I agree that the ACLU likely finds this particular client irksome. Then again, the ACLU frequently takes on unpopular clientele in order to defend civil freedoms, _by defending those on the fringes of those freedoms._
The issue with the ACLU’s work isn’t the content of their appellees, but rather the freedom of those appellees to express themselves.
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### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/14 "2006-07-23T23:05:24Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> But in my heart of hearts, I always hope that I can find just one person who says, “Sumbitch! I always thought the ACLU was Leftist. Thanks for giving me some evidence otherwise.”
The people who could most benefit from such a revelation are too dumb to comprehend such a revelation.
---
### Author:  [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2006, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/15 "2006-07-23T23:58:30Z")
> [@Lambo](#):
>
> Wait a minute–why is the ACLU spending their hard-earned money on THIS case? My understanding, from various hate-watch organization websites, is that Phelps, and many of his spawn, are lawyers, and that Phelps was, at one point before the crazy, a civil rights lawyer (I believe I read this on the Southern Poverty Law Center site). In fact, when a place I worked at was targeted by WBC, I attended a meeting where we were told to not respond to their taunts at all, and definitely not to get close enought to touch, because they love to bring civil cases for that (not sure what the claim would be, though).
I guess so. This section of his Wikipedia article kind of gets progressively worse and worse, ending with
> [@Wikipedia](#):
>
> [Fred Phelps - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps#Phelps.27_law_career)
>
> In October of 1973, two of Fred’s children placed a television set on layaway at Sears, to be ready at Christmas. When the children came back in November and asked for the television set, Sears told them that it would not be ready until Christmas, per the layaway contract. Fred Phelps responded by filing a $50,000,000 lawsuit against Sears, in addition to another class-action lawsuit, claiming it to be on behalf of 1,000,000 unidentified Sears customers. The class action portion of the suit was thrown out of court; the case lasted six years in court, ending in 1979 with Phelps being granted $126.34, less than the cost of the television set.
>
> By this time, Phelps had more complaints filed against him for misconduct than any attorney in the history of the state of Kansas (and, some believe, the history of the United States)
If he wants to sue so badly, I say let him be his own lawyer. Why not?
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### Author:  [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/16 "2006-07-24T00:13:33Z")
> [@TJdude825](#):
>
> If he wants to sue so badly, I say let him be his own lawyer. Why not?
Because he’s disbarred. If anything, his kids would represent him in court.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/17 "2006-07-24T02:11:33Z")
> [@Linty Fresh](#):
>
> Because he’s disbarred. If anything, his kids would represent him in court.
He could still represent himself, though, couldn’t he? I’ve never been admitted to the bar, and I can still defend myself in court. Doesn’t being disbarred simply mean you can’t represent anyone else in court?
As for Fred’s time as a “civil rights lawyer,” it wasn’t motivated out of any interest or compassion for blacks. It was simply that poor, uneducated blacks with little trust or understanding in the judicial system were easier to defraud.
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2006, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/18 "2006-07-24T02:21:03Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> I’m not mad at the ACLU. I just wanted to link to an article that you can shove down the mouth of the next **muthafrickin’** arsehole who bitches to you that the ACLU is only about the LEFT.
>
> Defending Phelps has to cause them to tighten up their sphincters at night.
You sure beat the shit out of that strawman!
Assuming somebody wanted to play Scarecrow to your Dorothy, they might opine that the exception proves the rule, assuming of course they bought into the fallacy that Phelps represents the Right any more than the Ku Klux Klan (which the ACLU also represented.)
Scarecrow would say the ACLU is only about the left and kooky hate-mongers, and if he was looking for a dig he might wonder aloud if the distinction is worth noting.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/19 "2006-07-24T02:39:15Z")
> [@Scylla](#):
>
> You sure beat the shit out of that strawman!
Are you claiming that no one ever accuses the ACLU of being only interested in left wing causes?
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2006, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aclu-fights-for-anti-gay-phelps-clan/365739/20 "2006-07-24T02:45:13Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> Are you claiming that no one ever accuses the ACLU of being only interested in left wing causes?
No. Absolutes are for morons. Who’s making the argument that it’s in such desperate need of rebuttal?
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