Deseret News | MSNBC commentator helps mark Utah ACLU milestone

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MSNBC commentator helps mark Utah ACLU milestone

ECR | 5:34 a.m. May 18, 2009

Isn't Rachel great! She somehow finds a way to be proud of being so different than most in her audience but, at the same time, defends her right and her audience's right to maintain that difference. Who can argue with that?

bob | 6:20 a.m. May 18, 2009

I wish I could have attended. Excellent motives by an excellent organization.

Anonymous | 6:33 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU is a joke. It's suppose to be the AMERICAN CLU...that means they should protect the civil liberties of AMERICANS, not every illegal alien that makes their way into America.

I thought it was also humorous that they described the Utah ACLU as, "the "state's preeminent voice in defense of religious liberty, privacy and freedom of expression..." We sure hear that voice when the LDS Church or RLDS Church is in the news.

Comments continue below

Anonymous | 6:57 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU is the most un-American organization on the planet. I'm embarrassed they even exist in Utah. They do not represent me, they do not service civil rights or civil liberties. The ACLU is a money and legal machine that sucks in millions of dollars so they can sue the pants off any and everybody. What a disgusting organization.

The ACLU defended Limbaugh.... | 7:17 a.m. May 18, 2009

...so why don't you think it would defend YOU?

Oh! YOU don't deserve having civil rights? The First Amendment says the government cannot infringe on MY right to free speech, nor can they infringe on my right to practice MY religion.

This is so GREAT! I'm going to propose that we make a law that YOU (Anonymous) has NO rights under the Bill of Rights (including gun ownership)...and you won't complain! Those silly rights keep getting in your way to suppress everyone else. Well, let's just legally suppress you.

Why do YOU hate America, Mrs Anonymous Parrot of Hannity-Limbaugh-Savage? My apologies if you actually are male, but only a Utah woman could be so nonthinking of what the Bill of Rights means...and how UNpopular speech is protected.

@7:17 | 8:00 a.m. May 18, 2009

Wow! What a mindless rant against women and talk radio. Wouldn't America be great if we went back to the good old days, where we got our information from the leftist 'alfabet' media and respected women.

Clint Salisbury | 8:11 a.m. May 18, 2009

Why are the harshest critics of the ACLU on this comment page "Anonymous"?

Anyway, I encourage people to watch the Rachel Maddow Show. I don't agree with all that she says or stands for, but she does engage in smart analysis and has great guests on the show. She's a great interviewer. Obama even gets some flack on her show.

Reformed Utahn | 8:11 a.m. May 18, 2009

Love this woman! Not only is she one of my role models, my 12 year old twins (boy and girl) love her too. Intelligence and that killer wit. Rache's fantastic!

SLC gal | 8:38 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU only protects you if you agree with their agendas. To have their keynote speaker celebrating "odd" is a joke.

They do not, and never will represent my points of view.

@8:00am | 8:39 a.m. May 18, 2009

If the "good old days" are the 'alfabet' [sic] media, you're saying that the MSM **is** Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?

Thank you for admitting that!

Emjay | 8:49 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU is an organization that does everything it can to fight against religious freedom. support leftist causes and degrade our national security. It's amazing that ANYONE thinks they represent ANYTHING that's praiseworthy or of good report. One ACLU lawyer even resigned from the ACLU because he couldn't stomach the way the organization attacks religion anymore.

@SLC gal | 9:05 a.m. May 18, 2009

I'll take it that you don't support BYU's right to monitor off campus housing. ACLU did.

ACLU = LAME | 10:03 a.m. May 18, 2009

ACLU is a dang joke. Don't tell me they represent me when they fight AGAINST so many things I believe in. Boo you ACLU.

re: SLC gal | 10:13 a.m. May 18, 2009

I'm confused. If they don't represent your views, why are you so bitter that they would never defend your views?

That really is an oxymoron.

FYI - Come join the real world. Any organization looks out first and formost for their own followers. Do you think the LDS church goes out of their way to support movements or opinions that do not agree with their own?

Sick Twisted Freak | 10:14 a.m. May 18, 2009

WE surround THEM.

Anonymous | 10:15 a.m. May 18, 2009

Whenever I see her on TV, I want to throw a brick at my TV.

Anonymous | 10:27 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU defeated the right of churches to send their missionaries door to door. Even after this, I still support the ACLU.

SBB | 10:33 a.m. May 18, 2009

All of you who are totally against the ACLU, would you please give me a few cases that they have represented that turned you against them.

This is so general that I am not following you. You sound like Rush or O'Reilly. All hate, no specifics.

ACLU | 10:35 a.m. May 18, 2009

Their track record is all you need to see. Take for example the fight for the Main street ACLU vs LDS church.

Why for example was the rights of the citizens the right side to take, what about the rights of land owners?

Cause the ACLU fights Christian, conservative groups!

WHATEVER | 10:40 a.m. May 18, 2009

The ACLU was once a good orgnization, but has become corrupt like most orginzations whose agenda is not in the public interest but their own selfish desires for their own gain. Shame on you.

Anonymous | 10:44 a.m. May 18, 2009

So are you saying that the LDS don't continue to send missionaries door to door? That's news to me. The ACLU will defend anybody regardless of creed if their constitutional rights have been infringed. Yes that even includes Rush and hundred if not thousands of other despised individual and minorities that find themselves on the wrong side of the "tyranny of the majority."

Bandersen | 10:52 a.m. May 18, 2009

I have always been suspicious of Madow. Now I know why.

Lee | 11:11 a.m. May 18, 2009

To ECR, WHAT AUDIENCE?! Nobody watches that crummy show,not to mention the entire network she is on!

To: SLC Gal.... | 11:26 a.m. May 18, 2009

>>The ACLU only protects you if you agree with their agendas. To have their keynote speaker celebrating "odd" is a joke.

They do not, and never will represent my points of view.>>

Put up or shut up. I DARE you to find a belief of YOURS that they don't support your right to hold.

Dare ya.

You're a typical reactionary who speaks without listening, or even following the news.

The ACLU represents everyone: even Rush Limbaugh and the Mormon Church, two organizations I personally wish would go away. But I support their right -as does ACLU, with MY money -to support their own agendas.

You simply are uninformed if you think otherwise.

BTW, Rachel knocked it out of the park the other night. Kudos to the ACLU for a fantastic event. She was personable, relevant, funny and articulate.

Hmmmm | 12:05 p.m. May 18, 2009

I think we now know where Rachel stayed while she was in town. What's the difference between the ACLU and an ambulance chasing lawyer? They're both "helping" those that were hurt by someone bigger and meaner. Phooey! Sure the ACLU can help people in need. Unfortunately they don't usually take that route. They embrace controversy. Lots of great potential, but the ACLU fails. Name cases where the ACLU was beneficial to Utahans as a whole?

ceg | 12:30 p.m. May 18, 2009

When has the ACLU ever filed a law suit to protect my 2nd amendment rights to "bear arms?" These slime bags protect pedophiles, perverts, and pornographers.

While on rare occasion they defend the religious, they are usually against any thing religious. They fought the LDS Church over free speech on their own property (Main Street Plaza), however, they were silent in protecting pro-lifers free speech when exercised outside an abortion clinic on the public sidewalk.

The founder of the ACLU, Roger Baldwin, was a communist. I wish the ACLU would go away.

MIke in Texas | 12:55 p.m. May 18, 2009

Ms. Maddow was just being kind when she called Utah "odd". Many of these comments about her and the people of the ACLU, I presume from right wingers, are not only odd but very unkind, mean spirited and intolerant. Some of you "Saturdays Warriors" ought to be thinking about charity next time you take the Sunday bread and water. To Lee --- I guess I am "nobody" cause I watch her show most every week night.

Religious Freedom? | 1:09 p.m. May 18, 2009

If congress were to pass a law prohibiting prayer in school, would it violate that part of the first amendment that reads; "Congress shall pass no law regarding the establishment of religion NOR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF?"

Of course it would.

If congress cannot prohibit prayer in school (and it is their job to legislate); how, did the Supreme Court do it?

The ACLU has taken our laws and used them to destroy the very thing they were intended to protect.

The constituion now hangs by a thread and the ACLU is sawing on that tiny thread.

opedanderson | 1:50 p.m. May 18, 2009

Rachel!

I am lefty liberal type except that I have had no faith in Obama and I never bought into all the hype about him. His holding back the photographs, not going after the torturers and now continuing the military commissions has sealed the deal for me.

A kinder, gentler form of facism is still facism. Obama should be ashamed of himself. Rachel and the ACLU are our only hope to save this country from sliding further into a police state.

By his actions, Obama has virtually guaranteed that all of these attacks on our constitution will continue.

@Religious Freedom? | 2:16 p.m. May 18, 2009

"If congress were to pass a law prohibiting prayer in school, would it violate that part of the first amendment that reads; "Congress shall pass no law regarding the establishment of religion NOR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF?"

Of course it would.

If congress cannot prohibit prayer in school (and it is their job to legislate); how, did the Supreme Court do it?"

There is still plenty of prayers in school. No one prohibited it. The only thing that changed was that there was not prayer that the whole class participated in every day. Each student can pray whenever they want to. It just is not teacher led.

How would you feel if the teacher was Hindu and led your child in a Hindu prayer every day?

Wiccan?

How about praying to Mother Earth and Father Sky? Zeus and Hera?

That is why it has been changed. Teach your child how to pray silently for themselves and they will use it where and when they need to.

No one has taken away ANY religious freedom by stopping the class prayers. In fact, it has actually freed others to worship as they want.

Rachael ? | 2:17 p.m. May 18, 2009

She actually is kind of cute. Where did they get this horrible picture?

aclu | 3:18 p.m. May 18, 2009

= Anti Christ League of Utah

An Observer | 4:35 p.m. May 18, 2009

She talks about the need for diversty and subcultures,

then goes on to attack anyone who is not like her or thinks like her.

True stripes are always revealed in the end.

And while the ACLU does take an occasional case that is good, by and large, does not make up for all the evil and all that is destructive to america that they support.

Who says those good cases could not have been defended by someone else?

Anonymous | 4:54 p.m. May 18, 2009

"She talks about the need for diversty and subcultures,

then goes on to attack anyone who is not like her or thinks like her."

What attack? Where did she attack anyone?

Garth | 5:29 p.m. May 18, 2009

Based on the picture it looks like Maddow is auditoning for the role of Garth on Wayne's World.

Anonymous | 5:37 p.m. May 18, 2009

All of you claiming the ACLU is anti-Christian have short memories...the ACLU spoke out against the violence and vandalism directed at the LDS and Catholic churches following prop 8 in California, despite the ACLU supporting prop 8 themselves.

Bender Rodriguez | 5:37 p.m. May 18, 2009

re: To: SLC Gal.... | 11:26 a.m. May 18, 2009
>> BTW, Rachel knocked it out of the park the other night. Kudos to the ACLU for a fantastic event. She was personable, relevant, funny and articulate<<

And that is exactly why the 'right' does not like her or Olbermann for that matter... Those who are Funny & articulate w/ contrary opinions scare them.

re: Garth | 5:29 p.m. May 18, 2009

I was thinking the glasses in the picture are very Mike Myers as Austin Powers.

PROBLEM | 6:21 p.m. May 18, 2009

If RM is so BAD, why not have her on every channel to expose her "badness" to everyone.

Oh wait.

Maybe EVERYONE does not have the RIGHT WING FILTER which DEMONIZES EVERYTHING OUTSIDE THAT FILTER.

real | 6:29 p.m. May 18, 2009

The police chief's job is not to decide which laws are fair. We need to get rid of this guy who thinks he is suppose to decide which laws he agrees with! How many of us have been stopped for not coming to a complete stop on at a deserted intersection. Is that fair????

@ Anonymous 10:27 | 6:32 p.m. May 18, 2009

Actually, the ACLU DEFENDED the rights of missionaries to go door to door.

2 @ Religious Freedom: Actually, my favorite example is a Wiccan who worships sky-clad! LOL!

I love that people can't understand that in order to freely practice my religion, I first need to be protected from being forced to practice yours - and vice-versa!

Jed | 7:42 p.m. May 18, 2009

My tax dollars at work. What else can we afford Mr. President?

Kay Hacking | 10:42 p.m. May 18, 2009

I think it is an honor to have a great and good mind like Rachael Madox in our state. I love what she stand for and what the ACLU stands for. I think that the majority should never decide what is "right", if we did that we would still have the ugly racial laws, women would not vote, child labor, etc. etc. Somethings are just right, and maybe not popular. She is one of the best of the talking heads on TV.

Hope | 11:58 p.m. May 18, 2009

Maybe the ACLU will find a way of getting rid of those ridiculas glasses Rachel was wearing! Somehow, we've got to stop this stupid trend of these old glasses!

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