“For God And Country” has been the motto of the 2.7 million members of the American Legion since its 1919 founding by WWI GI’s in Paris. Today, Legionnaires with the courage to live by those words are standing up against attacks on American freedom and values not only by fanatic terrorists overseas, but against fanatic terrorem litigation attacks from within by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has become the Taliban American liberal secularism.
American Legion National Commander Thomas Cadmus recently called on government officials at the highest level to “stand up to the ACLU” in a blistering public denunciation of the Department of Defense announcement that it has ordered military units worldwide to not sponsor Boy Scout Troops, in settlement of an ACLU lawsuit.
“The idea that sponsorship of Scouting by American military units is ‘unconstitutional” goes beyond the absurd, even well past the point of stupidity,” Cadmus wrote.
“How is it the government can fund chapels on military bases, and chaplains in the military, but not accommodate Scouting?…
What are the courts doing?
Where is the outrage?”
Acid has been poured on Legionnaire’s outrage against the ACLU by growing public awareness that the ACLU in fact profits financially by judge-awarded, taxpayer-funded attorney fees in lawsuits against every expression of America’s religious history and heritage in the public square.
Elected officials at every level of government are terrorized from fighting the ACLU by the threat of court-awarded attorney fees under Civil Rights Act 42, United States Code Section 1988.
As far as it is known, not one single American judge has had the courage and common sense to exercise the court’s discretion to just say “No” to the ACLU when it seeks attorney fees, even though no attorney fees have actually been incurred.
Therefore, the American Legion, which aims to combat the ACLU by a variety of Means, adopted Resolution 326, “Preservation of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial,” at its National Convention 2004, sponsored by San Gorgonio Pass Post 428 in Banning and the Department of California, which calls on congress to amend 42 USC of 1988 to end judges’ authority to award attorney fees in cases brought “to remove or destroy religious symbols.”
While the Legion believes that the attorney-fee award provision was paved with good intentions, aiming to ensure legal counsel for legitimate victims of civil rights violations, it has been exploited by the ACLU, which has enriched itself at taxpayer expense in litigation against the Boy Scouts, the Pledge of Allegiance, Christmas displays and the singing of “Silent Night,” and – for the first time – attacks on veterans memorials – in which there is no real civil rights injury to anyone, but only ACLU mascot plaintiffs with de minimis claims (“Oh my god – I saw a cross!”)
The examples of the ACLU’s judicially abetted abuses are multiple and glaring:
The ACLU received some $940,000 in litigation against the City of San Diego to kick the Boy Scouts out of a city park.
The ACLU received about $500,000 in the Judge Roy Moore “Ten Commandments Case” in Alabama, even though the Commandments are inscribed on the doors on the Supreme Court.
The list of outrages and fees to the ACLU is long and ridiculous.
The American Legion is standing up to the ACLU and urging all other patriotic Americans to do so to prevent attacks on veterans’ memorials, the Boy Scouts and related abuses.
As a first step, there should be a united effort, overcoming any differences as the proposed language, to amend 42 USC of 1988 to rescind the authority of judges to award attorney fees in such cases while preserving that authority in legitimate civil rights cases.
“For God and Country forever; surrender to the ACLU – Never,” is the Legion call to all veterans, and all Americans, upon which common cause is and should be made.
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