ACS Blog

Nev. AG Candidate Sues over Health Care Reform, Says Law Violates Rights of Free Expression, Religious Freedom

jleaming@acslaw.org — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:18:19 -0400

An evangelical Christian lobbying group and a far right-wing candidate for Nevada attorney general have lodged a sweeping lawsuit against the health care reform law. Joel Hansen, the Independent American Party candidate, and the Nevada Families Eagle Forum claim that the Affordable Care Act violates "at least half a dozen constitutional amendments, including the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, 10th and 13th," reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hansen, at press briefing about the lawsuit, said that unlike the other legal challenges to the health care reform law, his is not about states' rights. Instead, Hansen said, "It's about individual rights. It violates the First Amendment because a lot of people are pro-life and this law forces them to contribute to (paying for) abortions. That's a violation of religious freedom."

Hansen, whose party supports legislation "to return authority over abortion and public prayer to the states," and "to control the Federal Courts," also maintained, as the newspaper reported, that "many religious Americans do not buy insurance because they liken it to gambling, and forcing them to buy insurance would be another First Amendment violation."

In its June 2010 newsletter, the Nevada Families Eagle Forum, edited by Mr. Hansen's sister Janine, warns of turbulent economic and political times, and calls for a spiritual renewal of sorts. "The first thing to do is to make sure your hearts are right. I go to the source of God's wisdom, the Bible," she wrote.

A string of state attorneys general have joined lawsuits challenging a provision of the health care reform law that requires certain individuals to purchase health care insurance or pay a fee to offset their use of health care entities, such as visits to an emergency room. Those lawsuits primarily argue that Congress does not have the authority to enact such a law. Many constitutional law scholars and experts disagree, arguing that Congress has authority under the commerce clause and the power to tax and spend. In an interview with ACSblog, Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel of the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC) and author of an ACS Issue Brief on the constitutionality of health care reform, chided the state attorneys general for bringing the lawsuits, saying they were frivolous and politically motivated. See video of Lazarus' interview here.

Stem Cell Madness: A Critique of Judge Lamberth's Shocking Decision

nflatow — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:20:58 -0400

By Hank Greely, a professor of law and genetics at Stanford University, and director of both The Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Interdisciplinary Group on Neuroscience and Society.

I was shocked last week when I learned that Judge Royce Lamberth had enjoined federal support for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. As a lawyer, I was even more shocked when I read the opinion, which seems to me, when considered solely as a legal matter, clearly wrong.

Last week's decision came on the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. The law allows a judge to issue a preliminary injunction when the moving party establishes, in Judge Lamberth's words:

(1) that there is a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) that the plaintiff would suffer irreparable injury absent an injunction; (3) that an injunction would not substantially injure other interested parties; and (4) that an injunction would further public interest.

In this case, the merits turn on the so-called Dickey-Wicker amendment. This amendment was first added to the HHS appropriations bill in 1996. Appropriations bills are good for only one year, so every year from 1996 to the present, Congress has added essentially the same language to the relevant appropriations bill. The current version, adopted as part of the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, states:

(a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for-- . . .
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death . . . .

For 11 years, the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations have agreed that this language allows funding of research using hESC lines as long as that funded research project does not itself destroy embryos. Judge Lamberth held that the language not only prohibited government funding of any hESC research, but did so clearly and unambiguously.

This prohibition encompasses all "research in which" an embryo is destroyed, not just the "piece of research" in which the embryo is destroyed. Had Congress intended to limit the Dickey-Wicker to only those discrete acts that result in the destruction of an embryo, like the derivation of ESCs, or to research on the embryo itself, Congress could have written the statute that way.

In 1996, this interpretation might have been reasonable, though, I believe, still wrong. In 2010, the decision is clearly and unambiguously wrong, for at least three reasons.

States Challenging Health Care Law Also Claiming Its Benefits

nflatow — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:43:09 -0400

Seven states suing to overturn President Barack Obama's health care law have nonetheless claimed subsidies available under the law for covering retired state employees, the Associated Press reports.

The states, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Nevada, are among 16 approved, along with about 2,000 private employers, for funds to defray the cost of early retiree health insurance, according to a list released Tuesday.

Some 20 states are challenging as unconstitutional the health care law's requirement that individuals carry health insurance or face a fine. The administration has countered that the law is valid under the Constitution's commerce clause and its tax and spend clause.

A spokeswoman for Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said while Daniels disagrees with the law, he will nonetheless take advantage of provisions that benefit the state.

"Indiana will seek funds that help Hoosiers when there are no complicated strings or costs attached," press secretary Jane Jankowski told the AP.

HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius said individuals between ages 55 and 64, who do not yet qualify for Medicare, make up one of the most vulnerable populations in the health insurance market, and private companies have significantly reduced coverage of early retirees over the past 20 years. The retiree assistance is temporary relief until the health care law is fully in place in 2014.

For more analysis on the constitutionality of the shared responsibility provision, see this ACS Issue Brief by Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center.

You can also watch a panel discussion on the health care reform law's constitutionality from the ACS 2010 National Convention here. We talked with Lazarus about the states' challenges to the law following his participation on the panel.

Federal Court Denies Review of Decision Limiting Military Detainees’ Ability to Challenge Imprisonment

jleaming@acslaw.org — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:58:04 -0400

A federal appeals court has declined to reconsider its earlier decision limiting the ability of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to lodge legal challenges to their confinement.

In analysis for SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston writes that the Jan. 5 decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia "upheld a wide-ranging view of the government's authority to detain non-citizens suspected of terrorism, ruling that the power is not limited in any way by international law - a view that even the Obama Administration indicated it did not share."

Denniston, however, notes that the federal appeals court's action today in Al Bihani v. Obama produced lengthy statements by several of the circuit's judges "to narrow the scope of" the initial panel decision, which upheld the imprisonment of Al Bihani, a former cook for the Taliban who maintains that he never engaged in combat against U.S. forces. The federal appeals court denial of rehearing and the judge's statements are available here (pdf).

Religious Group Chafes at Efforts to Stop Bullying of LGBT Students in Public Schools

jleaming@acslaw.org — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:19:30 -0400

The evangelical Christian ministry Focus on the Family is convinced that too many public schools are intent on preventing bullying of gay, lesbian and transgender students at the expense of the free expression rights of Christian students.

A Focus on the Family spokeswoman told The Denver Post, as noted at TPM, that, "We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled."

But GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, maintains that students' free speech rights, which are limited in public schools primarily because public schools are not wide- open public forums and the federal courts have consistently held that educators have great discretion in controlling the curriculum and ensuring safety of students, are not the issue here. Instead GLSEN says too many gay students are the victims of bullying and supports local and federal efforts to curb the incidents. A 2005 GLSEN and Harris Interactive report showed nearly 65 percent of middle and high school students had been subjected to bullying and a 2007 GLSEN report revealed that a little more than 86 percent of LGBT students were victims of bullying at school.

The group is urging Congress to pass a bill introduced earlier this month by Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey called the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA), which would include protections against bullying of gay, lesbian and transgender students.

"Our nation has failed to address the pervasive problem of bullying and harassment in schools for far too long. Countless youth are denied access to education every day because they do not feel safe in school. Passing the Safe Schools Act would go a long way toward laying the necessary foundation of support lacking in many American schools," GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said in a press statement.

Byard told The Denver Post that GLSEN's efforts to stop bullying of LGBT students do not subvert the religious speech of other students. She noted that, "The word ‘faggot' is not part of any religious creed," and that her group has worked with other organizations, such as the Christian Educators Association International and the First Amendment Center, on sexual orientation issues in the public schools.

Justice Kennedy Joins Call for Faster Judicial Confirmations

nflatow — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:06:29 -0400

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has joined the list of legal leaders speaking out on the slow pace of judicial confirmations to the federal bench.

During the 2010 Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, Kennedy questioned whether the Senate confirmation process is "working the way it should be," asking lawyers and law schools to study the process to identify "neutral" principles to guide both parties through the confirmation process, according to a release issued by the United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit.

"It's important for the public to understand that the excellence of the federal judiciary is at risk," Kennedy told the Los Angeles Times. "If judicial excellence is cast upon a sea of congressional indifference, the rule of law is imperiled."

Obama's judicial confirmation rate is "the lowest since analysts began detailed tracking [of] the subject 30 years ago," according to the LA Times, "with 47% of his 85 nominations winning Senate approval so far." There are currently 102 vacancies, out of 876 seats on the federal bench.

Christopher H. Schroeder, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy, said if the current rate of replacing judges continues, nearly half of all federal judgeships will be vacant by the end of the decade.

Sen. Sherrod Brown on Corporate Pushback Against Progressive Ideals

jleaming@acslaw.org — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:21:35 -0400

The Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United, which gives corporations unfettered ability to pump millions into electioneering, is emblematic of a narrow high court majority that is actively advancing corporate interests, Sen. Sherrod Brown told a gathering of law students at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

In his speech, hosted by the law school's ACS law student chapter and the ACS Columbus Lawyer Chapter, Sen. Brown focused on progressive periods in the nation and how they produced lasting advancements for civil rights and economic justice. For instance, he lauded three years in the 1960s as "probably the best three years Congress has every had - 1964, 5 and 6, when Congress and a new president, President Johnson, passed Medicaid, Medicare, the Wilderness Act, and the Economic Opportunity Act, including Head Start; passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts." But Brown said that progressive era resulted in pushback from voters who apparently thought Congress moved too quickly, yet enjoyed the benefits of those laws for many years to come.

He said the current progressive era is receiving enormous pushback from corporate interests. The financial reform package that was recently passed did so over intense corporate interest lobbying - a million per day - Brown maintained. And in Citizens United v. FEC, a slim, but radical, majority of the Supreme Court issued a ruling that will further embolden corporate interests, the senator said.

Brown noted, "For years, all we've heard over and over again from conservatives is that the courts have taken an activist role; that thirty-year drumbeat ... from conservatives is that we shouldn't make laws from the bench, that liberal courts are making law from the bench, this activism from the judiciary is bad for the country." He said that refrain from conservatives has been heard often, "ad nauseam."

"But," Brown continued, "there was really no better example of an activist judiciary legislating from the bench than the Citizens United case. It was a narrow Supreme Court ruling from a radical majority; a majority that always, always, always puts corporate interests in front of everything else."

The Citizens United decision, "will clearly allow corporations to have an even larger influence in our political system," the senator said. Video of Brown's comments is available here or by clicking the picture (right). Video of the entire event, including a question-and-answer session with Brown, is here.

Racial Inequities Five Years after Katrina

nflatow — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:58:42 -0400

A conversation between Dennis Parker, ACLU Racial Justice Program Director, and Marjorie Esman, ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director, about Hurricane Katrina and the racial injustices that it exposed to the rest of the country.

Dennis Parker: Let me begin the conversation by asking you, Marjorie, as a New Orleans resident and rights and liberties advocate, what you think was the most important lesson learned from the disaster?

Marjorie Esman: Katrina showed the world what we here always knew: New Orleans is a city divided by race and class. Those divisions played a major role in everything that followed in aftermath of the flood. Still, we and the rest of the country were shocked by the images of thousands of poor black people trapped in terrible conditions and the never-ending stories of abuse. The ACLU did a report bringing to light the police abuse, racial profiling, housing discrimination and the dangerous lack of planning at the Orleans Parish Prison that disproportionately impacted the black population.

DP: Sadly, we didn't learn the lesson that systematic discrimination and inequality exist not only in New Orleans but in the United States as a whole. Katrina wasn't the first time that inequality was revealed, and sadly, it won't be the last. Remember how surprised everyone was 20 years ago when statistical evidence confirmed what communities of color had long known, that black and brown people are subjected unfairly to racial profiling? But I'm not sure we learned any lasting lessons. Look at the extreme "show me your papers" law in Arizona that basically requires police to racially profile Latinos. Where are we five years later in New Orleans?

Race to the Top Embraces Federalism

nflatow — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:25:04 -0400

By Sonja Ralston, a judicial law clerk to the Hon. Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Ralston taught bilingual first grade prior to law school, and has published several scholarly papers on education law.

On Tuesday, the federal Department of Education announced the winners of the final round of its Race to the Top program. Nine states and the District of Columbia join Delaware and Tennessee, which won the first round in April. All told, forty-six states and the District of Columbia competed for a share of the $4 billion in prize money to implement comprehensive education reform plans, making it the largest state-based "competitive, discretionary grant" - in short, prize - in national history.

Though prizes are not an entirely new means of governing (in 1714, Parliament established the Longitude Prize to develop accurate measures of longitude on the open water and awarded £100,000 over fifty years), the Obama administration has newly emphasized competitive grants. But even among the administration's prize programs, Race to the Top is special: unlike the Longitude Prize or the Department of Energy's prizes for energy-efficient light bulbs and better batteries, the goal is to spur policy rather than technological innovation. Therefore, it invites states rather than individuals, companies, universities, or cities to compete.

Race to the Top represents a new approach to federalism: one that strikes a better state/federal balance in substantive policymaking than traditional spending programs while simultaneously doing more to leverage the impact of federal dollars.

Hurricane Katrina: Five Years Later, And Still We Rise

nflatow — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:20:06 -0400

By Nsombi Lambright, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi.

I can't believe that five years have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated Gulf Coast communities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And although groups and advocates who were experienced in disaster recovery told us that it would take at least ten years to rebuild, I never imagined that five years later, we'd still face the same challenges. The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina; are we celebrating growth and recovery, commemorating a tragedy, or both?

As I viewed the film "Trouble the Water" this week, I was mixed up inside. The ACLU of Mississippi partnered with an organization started by Katrina Survivors who relocated from New Orleans to Jackson, called Rise Above Katrina, to show the film at Tougaloo College, a historically black college in Mississippi. I met the New Orleans natives from Rise Above Katrina and hundreds of others from the Mississippi Gulf Coast immediately after Hurricane Katrina as the ACLU began to monitor the Government's overall response to the disaster as well as the disparities between services provided to white communities and people of color communities. In 2006, the ACLU participated in a U.S. delegation to Geneva to discuss the impact of these disparities to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The ACLU also provided technical and legal assistance to Rise Above Katrina when they were threatened by law enforcement when protesting in front of the American Red Cross offices in Jackson. The group protested the American Red Cross' distribution of disaster relief funds.

As I interacted with Wilma Taylor and LaShawn Traylor and some of the other survivors, I thought about how far they'd come. Wilma is a Gulf Coast Fellow who is starting her own organization to advocate for individuals with disabilities. LaShawn is finishing her education and continuing her ministry. They've moved into new homes, celebrated births.

Life has moved on. They have risen above Katrina. However, there's still a glimpse of sadness remaining in their eyes. It's a sadness that allows you to travel into their bodies and view the pain in their souls. You hear it when they talk about loved ones who didn't make it through the storm. You hear it when they talk about their disappointment in the governments that let them down. The city of New Orleans, which did not provide transportation for people to leave; the state of Louisiana, which brought military and law enforcement in to shoot and arrest survivors; the state of Mississippi, which withheld federal dollars from everyone except homeowners; the city of Jackson, which moved everyone out of the temporary shelter of the coliseum because a Disney show was coming to town; Harrison County, the place that has not rebuilt shelters for the homeless and arrests people for not having a place to rest their heads at night.

The list of disappointments is endless. And still they rise. They rose above the storm to accomplish great things. They rose above the storm with new friends and family who were survivors too. They rose above the storm with a new sense of awareness about the importance of fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. And even though they are still rising, they don't forget; they won't forget; they can't forget. I'll be there with them, rising too; until there is true freedom and justice for all!

Religious Liberty Looking Wobbly in Debate over Islamic Community Center, Writes First Amendment Scholar

jleaming@acslaw.org — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:24:37 -0400

Whether it's the extremist Florida pastor promoting a burn-the-Quran day or conservative pundit Newt Gingrich peddling his shrill campaign against the planned Islamic community center in New York City, rising anti-Islam action within in the country is not only "ugly," but raises serious "questions about the future of religious liberty," writes a leading First Amendment scholar.

In an Aug. 27 article for the First Amendment Center, Charles C. Haynes notes a recent Economist poll that reveals 34 percent of those surveyed "say there are some places in the U.S. where it is not appropriate to build mosques, though it would be appropriate for other religions to build houses of worship."

Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project, continues:

Propaganda works. The drumbeat of anti-Islam messages this summer - often conflating Islam and terrorism - on talk radio, the Internet and at political meetings around the country has apparently convinced a good slice of the public that American Muslims do not have the same rights as people of other faiths.

Haynes notes an e-mail from a soldier serving in Afghanistan, who is Muslim. The soldier asks, "Do we not deserve the right to worship freely and mourn for the people who died on 9/11? They were our countrymen too."

Haynes concludes:

If we are unwilling to protect the right of every American to religious liberty, then we have no business sending this soldier to risk his life in the name of freedom and democracy.

How the House and Senate Evolved So Differently

nflatow — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:21:12 -0400

By Donald A. Ritchie, Historian of the Senate.

Even a brief, seemingly prosaic phrase in the Constitution can pack a powerful wallop. Article I, Section 5 says simply that "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings...." As I explain in my book, "The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction," those nine words have enabled the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to evolve into two strikingly dissimilar legislative bodies, requiring different strategies in each house for enacting legislation.

Early in its history, the larger House adopted rules to limit the time members could speak, and essentially to allow the majority to prevail so long as it stayed together. The nineteenth-century House made itself into a hierarchical body, investing greater authority in the hands of its Speaker, establishing formal leadership positions, and creating a House Rules Committee that became a key leadership tool by setting the parameters for debate and amendment of major bills. The House evolved into a compound of groups: party conferences, committees, issue caucuses, state delegations, freshman classes, and any other means of creating strength through numbers. Since the House rules favor those who have the vote, the House majority could prevail without bothering to consult the minority.

The smaller Senate developed entirely different rules that gave more muscle to the minority, whether it is the minority party, a faction within the majority party, or a single senator who objects. More individualistic, the Senate limited the role of its president (the Vice President) to that of a neutral presiding officer, and took decades longer than the House to develop floor leadership. The Senate never gave to its Rules and Administration Committee the House Rules Committee's ability to define the length of debate and number of amendments that can be offered on the floor. The Senate operates according to a small number of standing rules, which it regularly waives by unanimous consent. Because senators do so much of their business by unanimous consent, and because any one of them can object at any time, senators gain individual power the moment they take the oath of office - a good explanation for why half of the Senate is composed of former representatives. Senate rules allow more time for debate and delay, thus requiring more negotiation and compromise to get things done.

The Constitution set several "supermajority" requirements - two thirds votes to overturn a veto, approve a treaty, or remove a federal official from office (while the House can impeach by a simple majority) - and Senate rules added a three-fifths requirement to invoke cloture and cut off filibusters. Filibuster and cloture most distinguish the two bodies, since they exist only in the Senate. Garnering the sixty votes needed to achieve cloture usually requires the Senate's majority to seek some support among the minority. Before the current Congress, it had been thirty years since one party had sixty votes in the Senate. In between, the average majority was fifty-five.

With rules that foster deliberation, cooperation, and consensus building, the Senate's majority cannot relegate the minority to the role of bystanders. The majority leader controls the calendar, but the minority leader holds an arsenal of parliamentary weapons for blocking action. Having passed a strong bill, House members often get infuriated over compromises struck in the Senate. But the House minority will often give thanks for the Senate minority's ability to force changes or derail a bill entirely. Senate majority leaders, regardless of party, must regularly remind their House counterparts that their chambers operate differently and that the Senate majority cannot do everything it wants. Sen. Arlen Specter has compared the Senate rules to anarchy and the House rules to despotism, adding that deciding which is better "is a fairly tough choice."

Fla. Pastor’s Planned Burning of Qurans Draws Donations and Ire

jleaming@acslaw.org — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:11:41 -0400

A Florida pastor has found a way to garner attention - lots of it - for his otherwise unremarkable, but financially troubled evangelical church. The pastor of the fittingly named Dove World Outreach Center has planned a burning of Qurans to mark the forthcoming 9/11 anniversary. Pastor Terry Jones has dubbed the event "International Burn a Koran Day," and conceded to The New York Times that he doesn't know much about the religious text, and that the planned event is drawing donations at a time when his bank has demanded payment on the church's mortgage and its property insurance has been cancelled.

Although, Jones says he has "no experience with it [the Quran]," and only knows "the Bible," he is nonetheless convinced that Islam is "full of lies," and a religion "of the devil." The pastor's actions have drawn attention worldwide. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls the planned burning an outrage. Watch video of some of CAIR's response here. Dr. Saeed Khan, a professor at the University of Florida, told The Times that Jones is "hijacking Christianity," much like "Al Qaeda hijacked Islam."

As noted here, First Amendment scholar Charles C. Haynes has maintained that the rise of anti-Islam rhetoric is not only a danger to religious liberty in the country but also plays into the hands of extremists. "Such ill-informed statements must be music to al-Qaida's ears. After all, al-Qaida has worked hard to convince the Muslim world that its political and violent ideology is the true face of Islam - and America's ‘war on terrorism' is actually a ‘war on Islam,' Haynes wrote.

Celebrate Women’s Equality Day: Ratify CEDAW

jleaming@acslaw.org — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:02:41 -0400

By Emily J. Martin, Vice President and General Counsel, National Women's Law Center

Much like the Nineteenth Amendment itself these days, Women's Equality Day-the anniversary of the amendment's ratification-keeps a fairly low profile, sneaking in at the end of August, when much of the country is enjoying the last few days of summer vacation. But this August 26, the ninetieth anniversary of the constitutional guarantee of women's right to vote, it is worth stopping to reflect on the many years of labor that culminated in ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and that work's relevance to women's progress going forward. One important way of honoring that history and continuing that progress would be ratification of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) , a landmark international agreement that affirms principles of fundamental equality for women and girls.

In one of the few law review articles addressing the Nineteenth Amendment, Yale Law professor Reva Siegel describes it as "a constitutional amendment so rarely cited that reference to it prompts many, if not most, constitutional law scholars to ask: ‘Which one is that?'" In retrospect, its passage seems inevitable and the ground it broke has been largely forgotten. But ratification came in 1920 only after fifty years of fierce campaigning for a constitutional guarantee of full citizenship for women.

As Siegel explains, opponents of women's right to vote saw suffragists' demands as deeply threatening. "The demand is for the abolition of all distinctions between men and women, proceeding upon the hypothesis that men and women are the same," one opponent asserted. "[This] attacks the integrity of the family; . . . it denies and repudiates the obligations of motherhood." Anti-suffragists asserted that a federal guarantee of women's right to vote represented a power grab for the federal government, which would "draw a line of political demarcation through a man's household, through his fireside, and to open to the intrusion of politics and politicians that sacred circle of the family." Given this history, it is ironic that last week a Washington Times op-ed invoked the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to urge opposition to CEDAW, the women's rights treaty, in terms remarkably similar to those once used to oppose women's suffrage.

Stand Up For Religious Freedom, Don't Hide Behind It

jleaming@acslaw.org — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:04:15 -0400

By Donna Lieberman, Executive Director, New York Civil Liberties Union, and Louise Melling, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU.

Cross-posted at ACLU's Blog of Rights

"Of course you have the right to build a mosque, but it is insensitive to build it there."

This is the newest version of the call from critics of the proposed Islamic center in downtown New York City. The sentiment may at first blush seem sensitive: it recognizes the trauma of 9/11, the sacred nature of Ground Zero and the constitutional right to religious freedom. But the sentiment that the Islamic center can be built - just elsewhere - inevitably reflects a prejudice and intolerance that is in fact inconsistent with religious freedom.

To conclude that building the Islamic center near Ground Zero is insensitive, one must, consciously or not, believe that the Muslims of downtown New York City who will come to the center to pray are - by virtue of their faith - all tainted by the terrorists who committed an atrocious act in the name of Islam. How else to explain the alleged "insensitivity"?

Political leaders like Mayor Bloomberg in New York should be praised for standing up for religious freedom in the face of political pressure. But the voices of prejudice still fill the airwaves, and outright hostility toward mosques continues to flare up around the country in locations having no relation to any acts of terrorism.