Apropos of our debate over government prayer versus private prayer (here, here, and here) I came across this little bit at Pandagon: Merry Christmas ACLU. Apparently there is a campaign afoot to send Christmas cards to the ACLU. The more Christmasy the better! As Pandagon sarcastically observes:
I’m sure the [ACLU] is totally demoralized to discover that a bunch of private citizens on their private time and on their own dime are sending Christmas cards to celebrate their private religious convictions. Dammit. It’s as if removing state endorsements of that wretched holiday weren’t enough to end Christmas all together.
This method of “torturing” the ACLU has a vaguely Pythonesque Spanish Inquisition feel to it reminiscent of “torturing” the nice old lady with “THE COMFY CHAIR.” I know, I know, you didn’t expect me to bring the Spanish Inquisition into this, but then again, nobody does.
In any event, it reveals a fundamental disconnect between the reality of the ACLU’s motives and the perception in these government and religion cases. I always figured those opposing these ACLU actions just ignored the government part of the equation because it sounded more inflammatory and politically expedient to say “The ACLU hates Jesus!” But, if there are folks out there who honestly think that private citizens sending Christmas cards to the ACLU will be a source of irritation to the organization, that suggests those folks truly do not understand that it’s the government involvement with religion that causes concern — not the religion itself.
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