Victory in Loudoun County

[Nick Arnett]

At 11:11 AM 10/22/97 -0700, Curtis Parish wrote:
>The ACLU proclaims that they are promoting tolerance of all peoples' beliefs
>and values because everyone has equal rights to believe and practice as they
>choose.......unless you are a given the label "conservative Christian."  By
>labeling someone "conservative" or "Christian",  it then becomes OK to be
>intolerant of that person's beliefs .     The ACLU  is intolerant of my
>belief of intolerance toward certain issues.  Therefore in fighting my
>beliefs  the ACLU practices what they say they are trying to eliminate
>(intolerance.)

Intolerance of beliefs is distinct from intolerance of actions.  I'm a
fairly liberal Christians who cringes at the "I have God here in my back
pocket and He says..." rhetoric from self-described conservative Christians.
My first response is to recall that the primary recipients of criticism from
Jesus were the Pharisees, the extreme conservatives of their day.

I believe that there's a place in the world for an extreme advocate for
civil liberties, as the ACLU is.  I don't think the world would be a
pleasant place if they won every battle, but they provide great balance.

Librarians on both sides of this issue might do well to carefully look at
the ACLU's actions.  Take a look at this document:

http://www.aclu.org/court/scpreview97.html#askin

It's describes how a 15-year-old student, who, in research for a paper,
wrote a letter to a left-wing organization and as a consequence became the
target of an FBI field investigation for "subversive behavior."  Is there a
public librarian who would would consider this reasonable behavior by the FBI?

Harmony in the world does not result from one side or the other winning.  It
results from a balance of powers that ensures that all voices are heard.

(To reiterate my stand on filtering, I believe libraries should unplug their
Internet connections until they receive funding, tools, etc., to catalog the
resources it makes available.  I'm calling this the George Carlin argument,
from one of his jokes: "Some say the glass is half full.  Some say the glass
is half empty.  I say the glass is too big!")

Nick Arnett

Product Manager, Advanced Technology
Verity Inc. -- Connecting People with Information

Phone: 408-542-2164               Fax: 408-541-1600
Home office: 408-733-7613         narnett at verity.com
http://www.verity.com