The ACLU is all for free speech, or so we have been told. It turns out, though, that this is only true when the speech is such as is deemed acceptable to the membership of the ACLU, even if the dissenting voices are directors on the ACLU's governing board:
The ACLU has always been a strong First Amendment advocate, but the pro-abortion group is planning to toss aside the free speech rights of its board members after some of them criticized the group for supporting a Congressional abortion bill that would unfairly target pregnancy centers. The ACLU joined leading pro-abortion organizations last month in backing a measure that would threaten to shut down pregnancy centers that abortion advocates say deceive women because they don't do abortions.
Members of the ACLU board gave various media interviews saying they disagreed with the groups decision to support the bill and say the board should have been consulted. Now the pro-abortion group is asking for board members to remain silent and not give public interviews about such disagreements.
An ACLU committee has proposed new standards for its board members and says they should no longer speak to the media and be mindful of the financial costs of public disagreement. "Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee proposes, according to a New York Times report.
Nat Henthoff, a former ACLU board member who is pro-life and a nationally syndicated columnist, told the Times: "For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members -- I can't think of anything more contrary to the reason the ACLU exists."
"I find it quite appalling that the ACLU is actively supporting this," board member Wendy Kaminer told the New York Sun in an interview shortly after the ACLU supported the bill. "I think this is precisely the kind of legislation we should be opposing, not supporting."
"I am troubled by the assumption in the legislation that abortion services, as a matter of linguistics and a matter of law, cannot include discussing with a woman why she shouldn't have an abortion," Kaminer said.
This is rich. Someone needs to explain to idealists like Hentoff and Kaminer that, contrary to their fervent asseverations, many leftists simply don't see free speech as a good in itself. It is only a good insofar as it can be used to weaken the social fabric that has held this country together for 200 years. It is certainly not prudent, in their view, to so liberalize speech that it be a potential impediment to the work of the ACLU itself as it seeks to undermine the institutions of this nation. Such a freedom would be, well, reactionary.