The Indy Star has an article on the Indiana Civil Liberties Union entitled ICLU leaders balance freedom and faith which I highly recommend. It takes some time to examine the ICLU’s involvement with issues concerning government and expressions of faith. The ICLU is not against religion generally, it’s against the involvement of government with religion. Government should not be in the God business.
Opposed to the ICLU you really have some people and organizations showing their stripes. On the one hand, you have Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute acting much like Brother Dobson’s American Family Association. Smith denounces the ICLU as ‘attacking people of faith’ while Micah Clark of the American Family Association says the ICLU shows ‘an unmistakable ICLU bias against Christianity’. Clark whines that the ICLU hasn’t gone after Jews or Muslims. (Clark doesn’t say whether, for example, Muslims have invoked Allah as the God to whom we all pray while speaking from the Speaker’s podium as part of the official business of the House of Representatives.) The Star article says, “those who would accuse the organization of having it in for God misunderstand where the ICLU is coming from, its leaders say.”
I think it’s generous to say that Smith and Clark ‘misunderstand’ the ICLU’s position. I think they either don’t care what the position is or they know and deliberately lie about it. When they get their followers all riled up, those followers are easier to lead and are more likely to send money.
On the other hand, you have a more honest disagreement with the ICLU from the American Center for Law and Justice. Francis Manion of that organization says that he consideres charges that the ICLU is against people of faith to be unfair. “What they are really about is pushing their own world view of what the boundaries should be between religion and public life — and I think their view is wrong,” Manion said. I’d suggest it’s the boundaries between religion and government rather than ‘public life’ generally. But, in any case, he has a reasonably accurate statement of the ICLU’s position and that he disagrees. That’s fair. A reasonable discussion of the proper involvement of religion with government can follow.
Incendiary demonization and misrepresentation that Smith and Clark are engaged in is inexcusable. That sort of “debate” should be shunned as should the organizations engaged in poisoning the public discourse. Forthright and honest disagreement like that put forth by Mr. Manion is entirely appropriate.
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