On The Front Lines
ACLU President Nadine Strossen Speaks Out About Attacks Against The ACLU, Intelligent Design & War on Terror in OldSpeak Interview
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Speaking with John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, in this exclusive OldSpeak interview, ACLU president Nadine Strossen responds to charges that the ACLU is the "group that the Right most loves to hate" and elaborates on the ACLU's position on issues such as abortion, intelligent design, parents' rights, same-sex marriage and the Bush Administration's war on terror. OldSpeak is the online journal of The Rutherford Institute.
Whether protecting the right of Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazi groups to march in a parade or defending a Nevada brothel's right to advertise its services in a city newspaper, over the course of its 80-plus-year history, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken on a panoply of controversial cases. Its involvement in such landmark Supreme Court cases as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which banned school segregation, and Roe v. Wade (1973), which legalized abortion, have further added to its reputation as a group that does not shy away from a fight. Claiming to have more than 500,000 "card-carrying" members and supporters, the ACLU has declared itself the "nation's guardian of liberty." As such, the ACLU has been on the front lines in challenging government officials on civil liberties issues. Yet it is the ACLU's self-appointed role of church-state watchdog that has made it the object of censure from groups to the right of the political spectrum. Soundly criticized for allowing its left-leaning ideology to influence how the group deals with religious freedom issues, the ACLU's track record at times seems to support its critics' charges that at least when it comes to issues involving Christian expression in public, free speech concerns often seem to go by the wayside. ACLU president Nadine Strossen became the group's first woman president in 1991 and the youngest to hold that post. Since that time, she has championed many controversial causes, including the anti-censorship of pornography, which she expounds on in her book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard Law School, author of over 300 published works and currently a Professor of Law at New York Law School, Strossen has written, lectured and practiced widely in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights and civil liberties.
