We read:
"The ACLU lost a number of members in 1977 when they defended the American Nazi Party when they wanted to stage a demonstration in the town of Skokie, Illinois -- a city where a number of Holocaust victims and their families had settled. Over 30,000 ACLU members staged a demonstration of their own when they marched out of the organization, even after the ACLU won the case, and even though the Nazis never did march in Skokie.
Thirty years later, the ACLU proves that they have not learned their lesson. The Ohio chapter has agreed to represent the American Nazi Party again in a conflict over a demonstration permit, this time in a predominantly black neighborhood in Cincinnati.On April 20, 2007, the American National Socialist Workers Party of Roanoke, VA-a neo-Nazi group-plans to march through the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati. The city initially issued a permit to the group for its march, but the permit was soon revoked and prohibitions were added by city officials limiting the group's demonstration to a three-block area. Believing their constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly have been violated, the ACLU of Ohio will be defending the demonstrators.
Source
No doubt many readers and bloggers will disagree with me about this but I think the ACLU have got this one right. Free speech is not free speech if you can pick and choose to whom it applies.
I imagine however that the ACLU are just doing it to show how "unbiased" they are. It's easy to defend groups that are no real threat to you.
