ACLU to open its first office in stateCorrection appended By Dave Munday (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Friday, June 27, 2008
The American Civil Liberties Union is opening an office in Charleston next week. The location at 12 Exchange St. and the timing of the opening ceremony were planned to highlight the organization's mission, Interim Executive Director Graham Boyd said Thursday. The Wednesday ribbon cutting is two days before Independence Day. The ceremony will be at the Old Exchange Building on East Bay Street, where South Carolina leaders ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788. "It symbolizes our mission, which is to defend the Constitution," Boyd said. "A lot of organizations raise their money by trying to vilify the ACLU, and that's fine if that's what works for them." The organization had an affiliate office in Columbia that closed earlier this year; the new location will be the first national office in the state. Boyd was the lead lawyer representing the families of students at Stratford High School who said their civil rights were violated when Goose Creek police officers swooped in looking for drugs and confronted students in the hallways with drawn guns in 2003. The new ACLU staff will start by holding a dozen town meetings around the state and conducting a Web survey to find out what people think is important, Boyd said. Boyd was born in Charleston and grew up in Spartanburg. He will stay in Charleston until a staff and new director are hired, then return to his office in Santa Cruz, Calif. The ribbon-cutting will be at 2 p.m. and will include Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and other community leaders. Reach Dave Munday at 745-5862 or dmunday@ postandcourier.com. Editor's note: Earlier versions of this story gave the wrong address for the new office and were unclear about the ACLU's previous presence in the state. The Post and Courier regrets the errors. |
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Comments
This article has 33 comment(s)
Posted by ForPnC on June 27, 2008 at 4:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I've been a member of the ACLU for several years. I don't agree with numerous issues they're working with but there are more that I'm happy for. What organization is perfect?
Posted by The_Mouth_of_the_South on June 27, 2008 at 6:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, just what we need here. A branch of the American Criminal Liberty Union. Maybe they can get some child rapists released from jail on a technicality. . .
Well, there goes the neighborhood!
This is what you get when you have all these left wing yankees moving here from the north.
Posted by blueline on June 27, 2008 at 6:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why don't they just use the same building as the Planned Parenthood at Rutledge and Cannon?
Posted by lillycollette on June 27, 2008 at 6:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Quote: “The new ACLU staff will start by holding a dozen town meetings around the state and conducting a Web survey to find out what people think is important, Boyd said.”
Damn if these people don’t NEED to talk with me.
(Yeah—like that’s going to happen.)
Posted by Riptide on June 27, 2008 at 7:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well since the ACLU did such a great job on California, New York, Massachusetts and others why not South Carolina. Here is an organization, the legal arm of the liberal democrats that is devoted to the destruction of the free enterprise system, the family and removing Christianity from our lives. This is a happy day for liberals in South Carolina.
This organization was founded by Roger Baldwin a life long socialist/Marxist and William Z. Foster presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA in 1928 and 1932. Ruth Bader Ginsberg a Supreme Court Justice was the chief counsel for the ACLU and also voted against our 2nd amendment rights. Get ready South Carolina, things are going to get a lot worst from here on in.
Posted by NativeSon on June 27, 2008 at 8:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Communist party, socialist marxists - sounds to me like the democrat party (not democratic party) as they would have you believe.
Posted by shoelaces on June 27, 2008 at 8:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Mouth of the South......You took the words right out of my mouth....There goes the neighborhood. Then again, I think it's been gone for quite awhile.
Anybody pay attention to the street? Liberty Street?? What a coincidence - doubt it.
Uphold the Constitution!!!! Really? Exactly which country's constitution are they upholding? They do not speak for me.
Posted by theronce on June 27, 2008 at 8:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)
WOW! ACLU and PP, together, thanks. We're finally getting some concrete help to move us out of the gutter into the brave new world (or is that the new world order) by severing our ties to the Constitution, family, selfish self-reliance, religion, and conscience. Free of these archaic ideas, we will be free to bow to the wishes of the government of our friends and neighbors and live forever in peace and good will. Look out, USA. SC is preparing to rise from the bottom of your lists. It's exciting to imagine no more accidents, being protected from anything harmful. Exhilerating to be able to live without having to worry about the government, since the government will protect me from all harm and misfortune.
Posted by onevoice on June 27, 2008 at 8:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)
ACLU - ALL CROOKED LAWYERS UNITED
Posted by Thomas1776 on June 27, 2008 at 8:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
South Carolina needs total reform and these self-serving elected idiots and tyrants sent packing - and that includes certain circuit court judges as well.
Things will not turn around on their own; we have all seen that. Force must be used. And hopefully the ACLU help with doing just that here in SC. If you think SC government and local government is fine and dandy, you need a whole team of psychiatrist to treat you.
Posted by desspec on June 27, 2008 at 8:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
They're going to defend the Constitution by finding out what people think is important? Sounds like they are going on the attack.
Posted by scienceguy on June 27, 2008 at 8:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The ACLU is often awarded fees when it wins cases. It is moving into South Carolina because our Legislature insists on passing unconstitutioanal legislation, thereby making the State fertile ground for fee-generating litigation. So when our taxes shoot up, don't blame the ACLU--blame the Legislature for passing the unconstitutional laws.
Posted by ColdBeer on June 27, 2008 at 8:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well said scienceguy.
Posted by keepinitreal on June 27, 2008 at 9 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This is just another nail in our coffin. You think you got mad just a couple days ago with the Supreme Court's decision? Add this to the list of organizations to watch out for.
Posted by Riptide on June 27, 2008 at 9:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) is an organization of pedophiles. This organization was defended by the ACLU. Is it any wonder why we have a problem with pedophiles in our society with the likes of the ACLU defending them. From illegal aliens, gun rights issues, property rights issues, gay marriage to taking Christianity out of lives, the ACLU is there destroying everything we hold sacred. Pretty soon we’ll all be on the liberal plantation bowing to our liberal commissars and you won’t be able to tell the different between San Francisco and Charleston.
Posted by algorelost on June 27, 2008 at 9:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
ACLU is only concerned with defending chil rapist. Just look at how they defend Nambla in Massachutes.
Posted by Riptide on June 27, 2008 at 9:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Scienceguy…
The theory of scientific socialism…wasn’t that advanced by Karl Marx?
More junk science.
Posted by shoelaces on June 27, 2008 at 9:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
IF the ACLU comes here to stop unfair / illegal legislation from being passed that might be OK. But let's face it, the types of cases they usually take - or that get the most press - are mainly helping IDIOTS get their way on ridiculous types of lawsuits. Not everyone who poses a lawsuit deserves to have it heard. And I don't want to pay for it.
ACLU is more like "junk" politics.
Posted by keepinitreal on June 27, 2008 at 9:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Riptide_
Yeah, they help in defending homosexuals who want to join and be leaders of our boy scouts too.
Thursday, June 26, 2008 Broadcast of Wallbuilders.org on WKCL Radio at 6:30pm. Go to the site and listen.
Philadelphia Kicking Boy Scouts Out of Their Own Building
Guest: Diane Gramley, Pennsylvania Family Association
Summary and Links
Summary:
David Barton, Rick Green, and Diane Gramley from the Pennsylvania Family Association discuss the attempt of the city of Philadelphia to take away a building built by the Boy Scouts of America.
Scout Oath (or Promise)
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.
Guess which two parts of the oath homosexuals would have a problem upholding.
Posted by Riptide on June 27, 2008 at 9:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Keepinitreal…
To be honest, I think they would have a problem with the entire oath.
If one wanted to destroy a culture from within, I can’t think of a better organization than the ACLU. Well I got to go to work now so I can pay my taxes.
Posted by drp7773 on June 27, 2008 at 9:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Kiss your Christmas goodbye, kiss your religion goodbye, kiss your boyscouts goodbye, get ready for free rapes of your children, kiss all the morals and common sense that was left goodbye, you will be up to your yang yang in lawsuits, scare tactics and inmoral justice but hey the liberal judges will fit right in huh...look out Dot, the real haters are on the way. SC has come a longggg way babyyyyyyyyyy. NOTTTTTTTT
Posted by coolfreaknbeans on June 27, 2008 at 11:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Riptide -I was about to point out that very fact.I'd be damned if I'd ever support an organization that supports/defends NAMBLA.With the ACLU in town we can kiss goodbye our Christmas decorations on King st.I'd love to organize an ACLU protest.They are the bottom of the barrel pieces of ultra liberal crap.
Posted by Jane on June 27, 2008 at 12:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Let's see..they sued in San Diego to get a cross taken down that had been there for decades. I guess they will be suing to get the cross taken down in our harbor too. They have sued the boy scouts...below is another wonderful thing the ACLU is fighting for (rolling my eyes)
You can't make this up!
June 16, 2008
ABSURD: ACLU Investigating Rink's Amount of Ice Time to Hockey vs. Figure Skating
By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
What ever happened to supply and demand? Well, if you run an ice rink, you can't worry about that any longer when divvying up ice time.
Unless you want the ACLU on your tail.
The Michigan ACLU is investigating an ice rink owned and operated by the Detroit suburb of Plymouth, claiming that when it cut a skating program to accommodate hockey teams, it discriminated against girls in favor of boys.
Yes, this--in addition to fighting on behalf of Islamic terrorists--is what parades as "civil rights," these days.
.
www.debbieschlussel.com
Stop the ACLU is a great organization and I suggest everyone sign up.
www.stoptheaclu.org
Posted by lowcountrylover on June 27, 2008 at 12:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OH!!!!! JUST WHAT CHARLESTON NEEDS. MORE LAWYERS.
Posted by Jane on June 27, 2008 at 12:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, they seem to have no problem with an Islamic school in Minnisota being paid for with our tax dollars. Illegal! Can you imagine if it were a Christian school?
www.jihadwatch.org
March 13, 2008
Spencer: Muslim Elementary School Welcomed in Minnesota
Establishment Clause issue? Naah. Not when it involves Islam. Here is my column for Human Events this week:
Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that -- in the same building -- a prominent chapel. And let’s say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars.
Inconceivable? Sure. If such a place existed, the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say “separation of church and state,” to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America.
*******
But such a school does exist in Minnesota, in a different religious context, and so far the ACLU has uttered nary a peep.**********
Tax dollars are currently at work funding the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a popular, rapidly growing K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine, Minnesota.
Posted by Jane on June 27, 2008 at 12:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
But such a school does exist in Minnesota, in a different religious context, and so far the ACLU has uttered nary a peep.
Tax dollars are currently at work funding the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a popular, rapidly growing K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine, Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, as a Minnesota charter school implementing a statewide “performance and professional pay program” known as Q-Comp, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy pocketed $65,260 in state money for the 2006-07 school year. The school’s website, meanwhile, boasts that it offers a “rigorous Arabic language program” and an “environment that fosters your cultural values and heritage.” Whose cultural values and heritage? According to the indefatigable investigative reporter Katherine Kersten of the Star Tribune, “there are strong indications that religion plays a central role” there.
Which religion? Do you need three guesses?
The Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy was co-founded by two imams; is housed in the same building as a mosque and the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS); features a carpeted space for prayer; and serves halal food in the cafeteria. All students fast during Ramadan. They attend classes on the Qur’an and Sunnah, or Islamic tradition and law, after school. The school is closely tied to the MAS: Kersten observes that “at MAS-MN's 2007 convention, for example, the program featured an advertisement for the ‘Muslim American Society of Minnesota,’ superimposed on a picture of a mosque. Under the motto ‘Establishing Islam in Minnesota,’ it asked: ‘Did you know that MAS-MN ... houses a full-time elementary school’? On the adjacent page was an application for TIZA” -- the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy.
The existence of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy is, of course, yet another manifestation of the witless multiculturalism that grants protected victim status to Muslim groups in view of the “racism” and “Islamophobia” from which they supposedly suffer. Latitude that would never be granted to other faith groups, particularly Christians, is readily given here.
But it’s even worse than that. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune exposé, the Muslim American Society is the name under which the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the United States. And according to a 1992 Brotherhood memorandum about its strategy in the U.S., it is embarked upon a “grand Jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Posted by Jane on June 27, 2008 at 12:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Last part of article...
Is Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy part of this “grand jihad”? A clue might come from the name of the school itself. Kersten notes that it was named after the eighth-century Muslim conqueror of Spain. Islam Online praised Tarek ibn Ziyad in a 2004 article as a “man of valor, a man of extraordinary courage and a true leader.” He is chiefly remembered for one incident in particular. Landing in Spain, he ordered the Muslim forces’ boats to be burned, and then told his soldiers: “Brothers in Islam! We now have the enemy in front of us and the deep sea behind us. We cannot return to our homes, because we have burnt our boats. We shall now either defeat the enemy and win or die a coward’s death by drowning in the sea. Who will follow me?” The soldiers, crying “Allahu akbar,” rushed ahead and defeated a vastly superior Spanish force.
Does the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy represent the same idea for those who founded it and now operate it -- the burning of the boats, representing the determination of Muslim immigrants to stay in the U.S., followed by conquest? In light of the Brotherhood memorandum and other evidence about the jihadist allegiances of the Muslim American Society, it is not an illegitimate question.
But what public official, in Minnesota or elsewhere, dares to ask it?
Posted by bkeelin on June 27, 2008 at 2:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Don't be too worried about the Anti Christian Liberty Union. They have lost almsot every case they have brought in the last couple of years concerning the Christmas decorations and other religious liberties. The 4th US circuit court of appeals is very conservative and is not likely to side with these anti American socialists. There is a group out there called The Alliance Defense Fund and they have been beating the ACLU like a drum at every turn so when these America haters walking around draped in a name like a wolf in sheeps clothing try to jump out and attack just remember their bark is much worse than there sniping little bite.
If the federal government didn't fund them to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, like they fund planned unparenthood, they would just fold up and fade away. Another dissappointment from President Bush.
Posted by JohnS on June 27, 2008 at 3:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mexicans will need somewhere to go once the new worker law takes affect in Jan 2009.
Posted by coolfreaknbeans on June 27, 2008 at 8:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Wow JohnS.You have a point.They'll have a banner out front in spanish.So all of the illegals can flock there like flies on crap.Ugh.
Posted by MP on June 27, 2008 at 9:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
ACLU - American Criminal Lover's Union
Posted by BillytheKid on June 28, 2008 at 4:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
We have that "work" of art in office now,(Bush) and the ACLU is a unit that will do damage to us.
I give them my dollar, as soon as I have a mailing address and a dollar.
Posted by Riptide on June 28, 2008 at 6:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bekeelin…
For years I was always been under the impression that ACLU was for the little guy and fought for the civil rights of the common man. Not true. They have a clear cut agenda that doesn’t deviate from their Marxist goals. Years ago I was in a lawsuit over property rights and I almost lost everything I ever work for in life. I come from humble beginnings and I had to work and save for everything I have. Don’t let these leftist lawyers kid you, they are just as greedy and money hungry as any lawyer that ever came down the pike. It wasn’t until years later after the lawsuit that I found out that both my lawyer and the plaintiff’s lawyer were members of the ACLU. The worst thing about this lawsuit, if I was in a different county in the state I was living in, I wouldn’t have been sued. The ACLU is the Formosa termite of our culture.
I’ll look up the Alliance Defense and make a contribution. What’s the old saying…a conservative is only a democrat that has been mugged.