# Is the ACLU anti-Christian? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855 "2004-05-12T20:57:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![depocali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@depocali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/depocali)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/1 "2004-05-12T20:57:58Z")
For all the dopers who insist that the establishment clause is taking God out of school and that the ACLU is the tool of such liberal attacks, please tell me if you really think the ACLU is not, in effect, defending the rights of all. Does this decision make Christian dopers more aware of what is acceptable and not acceptable about bringing God into school, or will only everyone has to pray to my God suffice? [ACLU Settles Case On Behalf Of Christian Valedictorian](http://www.aclumich.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=353) ---
**Author:** ![mouthbreather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/2 "2004-05-12T21:17:47Z")
I’ve never thought they were. Another example: [Falwell and the ACLU – Court cases can make strange bedfellows](http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd02&DOCNUM=4408) ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/3 "2004-05-12T21:24:09Z")
Perhaps A-Christian. Certainly not anti- or pro-Christian. Questions of religious dogma and faith have little to do with the ACLU’s concerns. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/4 "2004-05-12T21:40:54Z")
Perhaps your initial approach is incorrect. The ACLU is neither pro- or con- with respect to religion. It defends the Bill of Rights because the government should remain neutral. In the two cases cited, the ACLU is defending against government interference with respect to religion. In the words of President Andrew Shepherd in _The American President_, “For the record, yes, I am a card carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is “Why aren’t you, Bob?” Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party’s most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution?” Source: [http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheamericanpresident.html](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheamericanpresident.html) ---
**Author:** ![depocali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@depocali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/depocali)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/5 "2004-05-12T21:55:35Z")
Perhaps my initial post was not as clear as I meant it to be. In many other threads I have heard a constant complaint against the ACLU that states that they are seeking to “take God out of school”. The reason I posted this specific thread was to see if any of the if people who constantly bring this up when the Pledge of Allegiance is discussed still believe that the ACLU is intent on attacking Christians. I personally do not believe it, and I agree that they are pro-Constitution and not anti anyone, but I wanted to see if anyone can still state that the ACLU is anti-Christian in light of the cases mentioned here. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/6 "2004-05-13T00:47:36Z")
What you’re not understanding, **depocali** , is that that particular segment of Christianity considers anyone not committed to their vision of a Christian-centered America to be a secular humanist. An occasional case where the ACLU defends a Christian’s religious rights doesn’t make up for their efforts to “leave God outside the schoolhouse door”. I spent most of a five-page thread on another board gathering and posting cites for cases where the ACLU has taken a Christian’s side in a rights dispute to convince another poster that the ACLU was NOT anti-Christian, and in the end it just came back down to “I still consider them atheistic humanists.” ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/7 "2004-05-13T05:54:32Z")
My minister was a member of the ACLU. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/8 "2004-05-13T05:58:29Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > My minister was a member of the ACLU. 🆒 Ah, but he’s probably one of those soft-on-sin lib’rul National Council of Churches almost-agnostic Christians that are the lasting legacy of the Hippie 60s! ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/9 "2004-05-13T06:08:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party’s most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution?" I know this just from a movie, but it is not really true. The purpose of the ACLU goes beyond defending just the Bill of Rights. > [@](#): > > The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is our nation’s guardian of liberty. We work daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Our job is to conserve America’s original civic values - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And something I have always found weird is the ACLU considers the Bill of Rights to be more than the first 10 amendments: > [@](#): > > Majority power is limited by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which consists of the original ten amendments ratified in 1791, plus the three post-Civil War amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth) and the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage), adopted in 1920. ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/10 "2004-05-13T06:11:00Z")
Link: [http://www.aclu.org/about/aboutmain.cfm](http://www.aclu.org/about/aboutmain.cfm) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/11 "2004-05-13T12:42:06Z")
> [@Kel Varnsen - Latex Division](#): > > And something I have always found weird is the ACLU considers the Bill of Rights to be more than the first 10 amendments: AFAICT the ACLU considers the Bill of Rights to be made up of the First, Third thru Ninth, Thirteenth thru Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/12 "2004-05-13T13:06:20Z")
I, too, always thought that the ACLU was devoted to defending the Bill of Rights (probably from watching the movie). In a thread a while back in GD, I realized this is not true. [ACLU Web Site](http://www.aclu.org/about/aboutmain.cfm) > [@](#): > > The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is our nation’s guardian of liberty. We work daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. **Our job is to conserve America’s original civic values - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.** Bolding mine. So, they argue that they are all about the constitution and bill of rights. However, this is a smokescreen. They go on to specifically state their agenda by bullets: > [@](#): > > The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees: > > Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state. > > Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin. > > Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake. > > Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs. It looks like they are actually driven by an agenda that has little to do with the constitution or bill of rights. They have certain things that they want to protect. Some of these things correspond to the bill of rights such as freedom of speech and association. However, others aren’t on the bill of rights at all, like right to privacy. In the meantime, some things from the bill of rights are not part of the agenda of the ACLU at all, such as the right to bear arms. They also are pro-choice, something which isn’t in the bill of rights at all. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/13 "2004-05-13T14:51:55Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > However, others aren’t on the bill of rights at all, like right to privacy. Uh…what? [The Fourth Amendment](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/) > [@](#): > > In the meantime, some things from the bill of rights are not part of the agenda of the ACLU at all, such as the right to bear arms. Why spend resources protecting a portion of the Constitution that is already being adequately protected by the NRA? If you can show that they actively attack the 2nd Amendment, you’d have an argument. > [@](#): > > They also are pro-choice, something which isn’t in the bill of rights at all. Yes, but the bill of rights was used to uphold a woman’s right to choose. What is inconsistent with that? ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/14 "2004-05-13T14:56:15Z")
Debaser, the Bill of Rights is also expanded upon by later amendments, and the courts have found that within the penumbra of those civil liberties enshrined in 1-9, 13-15 and 19, that a right to privacy which is both deep and wide can be found. By supporting the right to privacy, the ACLU is supporting and protecting the established jurisprudential reach of the Bill of Rights. As for the second amendment, the ACLU supports it, but does not believe that it applies to individuals who are not members of an organized governmental militia, IIRC. That may not be YOUR interpretation of 2, but it’s not necessarily an invalid one. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/15 "2004-05-13T17:12:51Z")
Intriguingly, I opened SDMB, Great Debates, and found this thread, immediately after writing a post on a Christian board I belong to on precisely the same subject. So I’m quoting that post, nearly verbatim here: I think the whole issue here needs to be looked at from a Constitutional law perspective and a Christian doctrine perspective. The ACLU is in business as an advocacy organization (and, as [another member] mentioned, they have a less than completely wonderful origin story, but I focus on the work they’ve done during my lifetime, not on what they may or may not have been in the distant past) with the intention of defending the civil liberties of Americans, particularly those guaranteed in the First Amendment. (They also speak out from time to time about the Fifth and Sixth, almost never about the Second or Fourth AFAIK). As regards religious issues, the First Amendment guarantees two things: (1) No person will be unduly barred from the free exercise of his or her religion. (The “unduly” line is not part of the text but a matter of judicial interpretation, allowing for, e.g., a cultist who believes that clothing is the work of the Devil to be barred from walking around public places in the nude, or the guy who claims that LSD is the way to God from distributing free samples of it to teenagers.) Any regulation regarding “free exercise” has to be founded on “time, place, and manner” standards that do not address content. For example, it’s perfectly acceptable to bar someone from ringing your doorbell to witness at 3:00 AM – but the regulations have to address ringing your doorbell at 3:00 AM for any purpose, not just witnessing – and if it permits the Girl Scouts to ring your doorbell at 4:00 PM to sell you cookies, it also has to allow selling siding and witnessing through doorbell-ringing at the same time. The focus has to be on time, place, and manner, not on content, of what’s being regulated. (2) No statute is acceptable “respecting an establishment of religion” – hotly contested, but I think [a conservative lawyer who posts on that board] would agree that standard jurisprudence interprets this as that no government body may impose any religious practice on people by statute or regulation. It’s important to note that the First Amendment prohibits Congress – and, by extension, the rest of the Federal Government, which can, by and large, act only in accordance with Congressional statute – from doing these two things. What extends them to **all** government is the Fourteenth Amendment. By the guarantee of the First Amendment, they are “privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States” which no state, according to the Fourteenth, may deprive its citizens of without “due process of law.” What this means is again hotly argued, but the doctrine of “substantive due process” is usually taken to mean that no state government may pass a law that deprives its citizens of either of those two protections. And by extension, no entity created by the state, including local governments and school districts, may adopt ordinances, regulations, etc., which do that. The ACLU argues cases where one of those two guarantees of freedom have arguably been violated. It does choose its cases rather selectively – as noted by another poster, occasionally for publicity value; other criteria include what it regards as matters of principle, the potential for obtaining a win at one level or another of the court system, and how invasive the particular problem is seen to be of the basic freedom guaranteed. School prayer is a hot-button issue for a lot of good Christians. And it’s important to grasp the state of jurisprudence here. There is an old and humorous line that “They’ll never succeed in driving prayer out of schools as long as they keep giving tests.” While funny, it makes a constitutional point. Students are completely free to pray in school, including voluntarily banding together in prayer groups, Bible studies, etc. – and that freedom may **not** be restricted by the schools. The key point is that a public school is a governmental body, paid for by taxes and created by state law, and as such is not permitted to impose a religious act on the kids it stands _in loco parentis_ of during school hours. That means no school official or employee, from the board of education down to the janitor, can require or encourage any student to say a particular prayer, read the Bible, or any other religious act, whether Christian or otherwise. They may not keep students from doing so voluntarily except as part of a _bona fide_ set of disciplinary rules. If the rules say that no students may wear jewelry, that will mean no crosses around their neck along with anything else, be it a Hindu or Satanic symbol, a purely secular necklace, or whatever (time place and manner) – but it has to cover all or none. If student clubs are permitted, a Bible study club has to be permitted – and a Gay-Straight Alliance along with it, if kids want to join one or the other – or both. They can be banned across the board – but it’d be violating the establishment clause to permit some and not others. In a country that has a Christian majority, violations of both free exercise and establishment clause protections are going to impinge on Christianity far more often than they do anything else. It’s plausible that a Muslim teacher might witness to a Sikh student – but that’s going to be far rarer than a Christian in one role or the other. Hence ACLU actions to protect people from establishment clause violations are most often the mistaken actions of Christians, and appear to be “anti-Christian.” They’re in general not; they’re **anti-compulsion** by a governmental organization or employee who happens to be attempting to use his authority to influence people to his faith. As Christians, we are called on to educate children in Christian belief and proper moral behavior – particularly our own, but also those with whom we come in contact in the course of our daily lives. I have this situation brought home to me personally in that my “grandchildren” are not any legal relation to me – they’re the children of three boys whom we fostered, informally, in their late teens. So my witness to them has got to be one that conforms to what God expects of me, but in a way that does not violate the principles on which their parents are raising them. Fortunately, we’re all pretty much in agreement on how to handle the situation – but from time to time I have to be careful not to violate parental authority on the subject at hand. It’s important that kids in public schools be made aware of Christian ethics and belief – but this **must** be done with due respect for their freedoms. For a student to witness to another student is completely within the realm of his legal rights – in fact, is **protected** by the free exercise clause. For a school principal to start the day with prayer officially sanctioned and imposed across the board is violating students’ rights under the establishment clause. I personally think that a teacher speaking one-on-one about faith to a kid outside a class setting is generally proper under free exercise – but the courts’ reviews on this are mixed, since it **can** be seen as undue exercise of governmentally-granted authority. Christian parents and citizens generally need to be aware of what can be legitimately done to influence children toward Christianity, and what is contrary to our legal protections of each individual’s right to freely exercise his or her beliefs without governmental compulsion or coercion. The key point to me here is that the ACLU is doing exactly what it was set up to do – to be an advocate for the freedom we all have as Americans to **mind our own business** without governmental regulation – and that we owe it to our fellow citizens, under the Constitution, that what we do to evangelize them and (particularly with kids) train them in the way they should go has to have that same level of respect for individual dignity and choice ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/16 "2004-05-13T18:06:33Z")
**Polycarp** , if that post doesn’t lay down the goon hand, I don’t know what would. Well said. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/17 "2004-05-13T19:01:36Z")
> [@spectrum](#): > > As for the second amendment, the ACLU supports it, but does not believe that it applies to individuals who are not members of an organized governmental militia, IIRC. That’s correct as this [archived page](http://archive.aclu.org/library/aaguns.html) on the ACLU site shows. Frankly, however, I find their reasoning to be rather vacant. They cite _U.S. vs. Miller - 1939_ as the only modern ruling by the Supreme Court on 2nd amendment issues and they call it a unanimous decision for the collective rights interpretation of the issue. This ignores the fact that the issue was decided by default; the defendant never showed up for the hearing, thus this side of issue was never argued before the court in _Miller_. The ACLU also makes the rather specious claim that if the right to own firearms is indeed an individual one, then the federal government is unable to place **any** restrictions on “arms,” up to and including nuclear weapons. Both of these rationales appear to ignore the very valid argument that “the people” as used in many amendments, means just that, “the people,” everybody. And then there’s _Emerson_ - a ruling by a federal judge, Sam Cummings, in a district court in Texas which states quite emphatically that the 2nd amendment is indeed an individual right. The ACLU position ignores this case and its arguments entirely. That may be only because the ACLU formed its collective rights stance before this ruling came down. The Supreme Court denied cert on _Emerson_ without comment in June of 2002. In short, the ACLU’s argument that they do support 2nd amendment rights, but only the collective interpretation of the 2nd amendment, wouldn’t pass muster here at the SDMB except when made by the most novice of 2nd amendment debaters. That’s why I call their reasoning “vacant.” Sorry for the trip down the side road. Back to the ACLU and the Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/18 "2004-05-13T19:11:05Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I spent most of a five-page thread on another board gathering and posting cites for cases where the ACLU has taken a Christian’s side in a rights dispute to convince another poster that the ACLU was NOT anti-Christian, and in the end it just came back down to “I still consider them atheistic humanists.” They say that like it’s a _bad_ thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/19 "2004-05-13T19:18:27Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I spent most of a five-page thread on another board gathering and posting cites for cases where the ACLU has taken a Christian’s side in a rights dispute to convince another poster that the ACLU was NOT anti-Christian, and in the end it just came back down to “I still consider them atheistic humanists.” They say that like it’s a _bad_ thing. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855/20 "2004-05-14T04:07:48Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > Frankly, however, I find their reasoning to be rather vacant. They cite U.S. vs. Miller - 1939 as the only modern ruling by the Supreme Court on 2nd amendment issues and they call it a unanimous decision for the collective rights interpretation of the issue. This ignores the fact that the issue was decided by default; the defendant never showed up for the hearing, thus this side of issue was never argued before the court in Miller. So what? The Court in [Miller](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=307&invol=174) had the legal issue of the Second Amendment before it: > [@](#): > > The District Court held that section 11 of the Act violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment. (at p. 176) Speaking for the unanimous Court, McReynolds J. stated: > [@](#): > > In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, **we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.** (at p. 178) > … > Most if not all of the States have adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms. Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed. **But none of them seem to afford any material support for the challenged ruling of the court below.** > > In the margin some of the more important opinions and comments by writers are cited. **We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below and the challenged judgment must be reversed.** The cause will be remanded for further proceedings. (at pp. 182-183) That’s a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. The fact that there was no-one arguing for the other side does not undercut its status as precedent. By the principles of _stare decisis_, it’s a binding decision on all the lower courts, unless and until the Supreme Court revisits it. So the ACLU is on good ground in relying on it. As for _Emerson_, it’s my understanding that some of the other circuits have reached different results. The denial of cert. doesn’t mean that the Supreme Court agrees with the reasoning in _Emerson_. It just means that the applicant for cert did not convince at least four Supreme Court judges that the case warranted Supreme Court review. Where the circuits are divided, the lawyers for the ACLU have to assess where they think the law is likely to go on this issue. If they chose the more traditional interpretation that seems more consistent with _Miller_, I have little reason to fault them. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-aclu-anti-christian/244855.md?page=2)