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VIII.) The BJCPA and Defenders of Pornography. 1. In this part of Mr. Tichenor’s defense of the BJC, he begins by altering the title of this section. Instead of: “BJCPA and Defenders of Pornography,” Mr. Tichenor writes: “the BJC is a defender of pornography.” The issue we raised in this section is not that the BJC is out there defending pornography but that the BJC is out there working with those who do defend pornography. These are the BJC’s allies and friends. These are the groups that invite Dunn to speak at their meetings. These are the people that invite Dunn to serve on the boards of various liberal organizations. These are the organizations that consistently oppose conservative Christian groups committed to the battle against pornography - i.e. Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Traditional Values Coalition, etc. Given the BJC’s systematic support of pro-pornography groups in conjunction with its systematic opposition of anti-pornography organizations, Mr. Tichenor’s title (“The BJC is a defender of pornography”) may be more accurate than ours. 2. Mr. Tichenor concedes that BJC general counsel “Buzz Thomas did co-author a book with Barry Lynn,” but notes that: “The book had nothing to do with pornography or child pornography.” This was not our point nor did we say this. The issue raised was that while serving as executive director of Americans United, Barry Lynn argued for First Amendment protection of child pornography on public television. The same First Amendment Lynn uses to defend “religious liberty,” he believes should also be used to protect “kiddie porn.” Barry Lynn’s support of child pornography also includes his testimony before the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography in 1985, when as a representative of the ACLU, Mr. Lynn testified in favor of First Amendment protection for child pornography. Advocating First Amendment protection for the reproduction and distribution of child pornography goes far beyond just defending obscene “expression.” It is to advocate moving toward legal protection for the sexual abuse of children. Again, our point is not that the BJC is out there defending pornography, but when its closest and most intimate relationships are with those who do, their silence and refusal to criticize their allies is most revealing. 3.
In
regard to the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, where Barry Lynn
testified in favor of legal protection of child pornography, a March 8, 1986
article in Human Events reveals even
more about Mr. Lynn. According to
the article, Lynn “acknowledged…that the ACLU believes that the owner of
your corner drug store should have the ‘right’ to sell magazines featuring
child porn, bestiality and even genital mutilation.”
A second ACLU attorney that testified before the Commission on
Pornography, Jane Whicher, when asked by the chairman of the commission “if
she thought the government had ‘any interest whatsoever’ in a situation in
which an adult attempted to give or sell literature portraying sodomy or
bestiality to a 12-year old child,” replied,
“no, I don’t.” (Whicher was a speaker at the 1994 Americans United
national conference) At an ACLU
press conference about the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Lynn
was “asked if he were a ‘consumer of pornography.’”
Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister, replied, “I can’t say I’m
much of an avid consumer of pornography. I
certainly purchase magazines, particularly when they have interviews with me in
them.” (AFA Journal reprinted the Human
Events article in their May/June, 1986 issue, p. 8) Congressman
Henry Hyde pointed out in a televised debate with Barry Lynn that Lynn had
“addressed an adult movie convention in Las Vegas.” Invitations for such
speaking engagements do not come to those who are only passively supportive of
the free flow of pornography in American society.
(See
our BJC flyer, p. 5) 4.
In
defense of the BJC’s involvement with Barry Lynn, Mr. Tichenor states: “The BJC is not involved in the issue of child pornography in any way.
That issue is completely outside of its program responsibilities and
expertise. It does not and never
has endorsed Barry Lynn’s 1985 testimony on child pornography before the
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography.
Neither has the BJC ever endorsed any position of the ACLU on the issue
of pornography in any form.” Though
this may well be true, it is equally true that the BJC has never condemned Mr.
Lynn’s statements or the ACLU’s defense of child pornography.
Rather, Mr. Lynn (and his organization, Americans United) and the ACLU
are the strongest of allies to the BJC. On
the other hand, even though the BJC claims that abortion is also outside of
their religious liberty assignment, that certainly did not prevent them from condemning former president Reagan for
his strong pro-life positions. (See
section IV.3) 5.
No
two organizations are better known for their defense of pornography than the
ACLU and People for the American Way. These
two groups are among the BJC’s closest allies.
Note BJC general counsel Buzz Thomas’ statement at the bottom of page 5
of our BJC flyer: “The American Civil Liberties Union has done more for
religious liberty than many denominations.”
In late 1993, Thomas stated: “I hope I shall never again have to hear
someone say that the ACLU and People for the American Way don’t care about
religion.”
(Report
from the Capital, Nov/Dec 1993, p. 6)
It should also be noted that the book co-authored by Thomas
and Barry Lynn was published by the ACLU as part of a “Series of ACLU
Handbooks Dealing with Citizens’ Rights.”
According to a 1986 article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Dr. James E. Wood Jr., former executive director of
the BJC, was the first president of the Waco chapter of the ACLU.
(Waco Tribune-Herald, March 30, 1986, p. 9B) 6.
Though
most Christians are familiar with the far-left positions of the ACLU, it might
serve well to quote a few recent statements from the ACLU’s Web Site. In regard to the issue of homosexuality: ·
“Founded
in 1920, the ACLU works on more lesbian and gay related litigation and
legislation than any other organization in the country.”
(ACLU Press Release, Oct. 22, 1997, “NJ Court
Grants Joint Adoption to Gay Couple”) ·
“In
1986, after more than two decades of support for lesbian and gay struggles, the
American Civil Liberties Union established a national Lesbian and Gay Rights
Project to fight for equal rights for lesbians and gay men.
Working in close collaboration with the ACLU’s 53 affiliates
nationwide, the Project co-ordinates the most extensive gay rights program in
the nation. Increasing opposition
from a well-organized, well-funded coalition of radical extremists and
fundamentalists, promises many battles and challenges ahead.”
“The ACLU believes that we have attached such enormous, social
consequences to marriage, it is simply not equal protection of the law to deny
lesbian and gay couples the right to wed.”
(ACLU Briefing Paper, Number 18, “Lesbian and Gay
Rights”) ·
‘“We
will continue to challenge sodomy laws until every last one has been
eliminated’ said [Matt Coles, director of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights
Project], ‘These laws are a throwback to the dark ages, and a constant threat
to basic civil liberties.’” (ACLU
Press Release, Sept. 16, 1997, “ACLU Argues Challenge to Kansas Same-Sex
Sodomy Law”) ·
“In a
landmark judgment for gay families, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties
Union today reached an agreement with New Jersey to allow lesbian and gay
couples to adopt children on equal footing with married couples. …
With today’s agreement, New Jersey became the first state in the nation to
specify that gay and unmarried couples will be measured by the same adoption
standards as married couples, and that no couple will be barred from adopting
because of their sexual orientation or marital status.”
(ACLU Press Release, Dec. 17, 1997, “New Jersey Becomes First State to Allow
Joint Adoption by Lesbian and Gay Couples”)
In regard to the issue of
abortion, the ACLU states: ·
“Will
it cost taxpayers money to fund abortions?
No. Because the costs
associated with childbirth, neonatal, and pediatric care, and welfare assistance
for new or enlarged families, greatly exceed the costs of abortion, public
funding for abortion neither costs the taxpayer money nor drains resources from
other services. For every public
dollar spent on abortion, four dollars are saved within two years in public
expenditures for medical and welfare services.”
“What about those who are morally or religiously opposed to
abortion? Our tax dollars fund many
programs that individual people oppose. For
example, those who oppose war on moral or religious grounds pay taxes that are
applied to military programs. The
Congressional bans on abortion funding impose a religious or political view on
those women who rely on government-funded health care.
Providing funding for abortion does not encourage or compel women to have
abortions, but denying funding compels many women to carry their pregnancies to
term. The government should not
promote a particular religious or political position by offering one form of
reproductive health care to the exclusion of others.” (ACLU
Fact Sheet, May 1996, “Public Funding for Abortion”) ·
“Since
1995, the ACLU and its pro-choice allies have fought a pitched battle against
congressional attempts to ban a particular abortion procedure… [the] so-called
‘partial birth abortions’…”
“The ACLU opposes attempts to ban so-called ‘partial-birth
abortions’ as an unconstitutional threats to the lives and health of women.”
(ACLU Answers, April 1997, “‘Partial-Birth Abortion Ban’:
Criminalizing a Necessary Medical Procedure”) ·
“The
American Civil Liberties Union hailed President Clinton’s veto today of the
so-called ‘Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.’”
“This highly dangerous bill
represents a severe threat to all women’s reproductive rights…”
“This veto put
a stop to a cruel, ideologically driven bill that was a first step toward making
all abortions illegal…” (ACLU
Press Release, April 11, 1996, “ACLU Lauds Presidential Veto Of Bill Banning
Abortion Technique”) 7.
In
the Fellowship News, the newsletter of the Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship, Oliver Thomas was quoted as saying: “It’s time to say no to
extremists on both sides. It’s
time to say no to the theocrats on the right who would use schools as an
evangelistic tool of their church. … It’s time to say no to the far left, the
religion police, who run around the public schools looking for any
reference to God so they can file a lawsuit.” (Fellowship
News, March/April, 1995, p. 10)
The BJC has made
it clear who the “theocrats on the right” are, but if the ACLU and PAW
reflect the BJC’s idea of champions for religious liberty, then who are the
extremists on the left? According
to a December 1997 Baptist Press article, on October 29, 1997, a federal judge
in Alabama issued a “permanent injunction prohibiting the governor, state
attorney general and state board of education from enforcing a 1993 state law
permitting prayer in schools…” To
assure compliance of the federal judge’s ruling, the court decided to appoint
a “monitor.” According to the
BP article: “Oliver ‘Buzz’ Thomas, special counsel for the National
Council of Churches and former general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on
Public Affairs, likely will be named to monitor enforcement of a federal
judge’s controversial school prayer ruling in Alabama.” (Baptist
Press, December 9, 1997
“Oliver Thomas likely monitor of Ala. school prayer ruling”)
However,
instead of Thomas, the court appointed Chriss Doss, a law professor at Samford
University’s Cumberland Law School as the official court-appointed “religion
police.” The January 13, 1998
issue of the BJC’s Report from the
Capital reported that Charles Haynes and Oliver Thomas will “train” the
court-appointed religion police “to see that schools carry out an injunction
against school-sponsored religious activities.” (p. 1) (Haynes
is the former president of Americans United’s Research Foundation.)
Though Mr. Buzz Thomas is not the court-appointed “religion police” of the left, he will be in charge of
“training” them.
(For more information about Buzz Thomas and the National
Council of Churches, see section VI.4)
Writing in the February 10, 1998 issue of Report
from the Capital, BJC associate general council Melissa Rogers states: “It
is regrettable that a monitor is needed, but the rhetoric from Gov. Fob James
and others about resisting court orders probably necessitates such action.”
She further notes: “It’s time to end the fiction that the ACLU is a
bunch of ‘anti-Christian bigots.’ While
each of us may disagree with the ACLU from time to time, it is not
anti-Christian - it is pro-First Amendment, including separation of church and
state and religious liberty.” (p.
3) That is the very point
we have been making - the ACLU and the BJC define church/state separation and
religious liberty the same way. 8.
Tichenor
states: “Barry Lynn is a colleague in the battle to preserve and defend
religious liberty. He happens to be
the director of Americans United. James
Dunn is one member of the board of trustees of Americans United.
Brent Walker is one member of the National Advisory Committee of AU.
That is as strong as the link gets.”
One more link Mr. Tichenor missed is that he himself, a member of the BJC
board, has long served as a member of AU’s governing board.
So is a number of other BJC board members.
(See section III-2 for a list of
BJC leaders serving on the governing board of AU)
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