How's That for Gratitude?

The American Civil Liberties Union has been instrumental in the release from prison of a religious crackpot who'd been jailed for threatening someone with curses from God. The ACLU considers the man to have been within his First Amendment rights in suggesting that God would "torture" a judge. One suspects that the civil libertarians were so ready to defend the man precisely because they did not take his threats seriously. Still, it's characteristic of the union to stand up for people who make provocative speeches. You would think that people of faith would appreciate this. But because the ACLU plays both sides of the street, and upholds the rights of those the Right despises, religious reactionaries hate the group's guts.

Consider this tidbit from the newest Harper's magazine. Back in October, an activist group called Focus on the Family Action published a prophetic "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," portraying a dystopian future that could be thwarted if people voted for Senator McCain. Among other things, we learn that President Obama will cower in helpless fear as Russia reconquers Eastern Europe (for reasons unknown) and Iran nukes Tel Aviv (and somehow doesn't lose Tehran in reprisal), while provoking an exodus of homeschoolers to Australia and New Zealand because an Obama-packed Supreme Court has declared their educational practices unconstitutional. Here's the relevant portion of the prophecy:

In his first week in office, Obama fired all ninety-three U.S. attorneys, replacing them with his own appointments, recruiting the most active members of the American Civil Liberties Union. ...The next month, when Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens announced they would step down from the Supreme Court, President Obama nominated two far-left, ACLU-oriented judges.

Notice that the prophet doesn't dare name names, though Republicans must anticipate some of Obama's likely Court choices. The point, however, is that the ACLU-influenced judiciary will overturn all laws against same-sex marriage and ban any homeschooling that teaches "that homosexual conduct is wrong or that Jesus is the only way to God." Their reign of terror will also lead to the disbandment of the Boy Scouts of the America after the Court orders that organization to admit gay scoutmasters. Along with another paranoid prophecy, the reinstatement of the FCC "Fairness Doctrine," the end result, as our prophet sees it, is that, under the sway of the ACLU, "Our freedoms have been systematically taken away. We are no longer 'the land of the free and the home of the brave' because many of 'the brave' are in jail."

It makes you wonder why groups like the ACLU bother protecting religious fanatics. It's not good enough for them to have the same rights as anybody else. Their all-or-nothing stand on homophobia tells the true story; these monotheists won't feel free unless they are the rulers. If they're not the masters, they feel like slaves. It makes you wonder whether there's really a place for such people in the world the ACLU envisions. But I suspect that the union will keep up its thankless work, which probably makes them more like saints than the self-appointed kind.

But one thing about that prophecy interests me. If Obama or the courts could do something that would really provoke a peaceful hegira of fundamentalist homophobic homeschoolers from here to Oceania, would you do anything to stop them? Is the prophet letting us in on something? Is this mass emigration something the believer talk about in private circles. I'd be fascinated if they did, since I didn't think they'd let the country go without more of a fight. Most of the prophet's foreign policy predictions are too ludicrous to be taken seriously, but maybe we, as the citizens of a democratic republic, can take steps to make other parts of the prophecy come true. Think about that while you draft your New Year's resolutions.