Restoring our civil liberties

The ACLU has put together a plan for restoring our civil liberties which have been diminished during these past eight years. They are, of course, making it available to President-elect Obama, but their recommendations are something that we should all pay some attention to.

You may not think your civil liberties have been affected on Bush's watch. But the argument that is often made is that once we start rationalizing limitations of our rights, each following step is that much easier, and we end up in a place where the unthinkable becomes possible.

You don't have to look any farther than California where an entire class of people has been told that their constitutional rights are being taken away from them... by a vote of the people. For the last several months, it's been legal for California gay men and lesbians to marry. But the apparent passage of proposition 8 has put the thousands of same sex couples who married during this period are now in legal limbo and delivered a message of "you aren't equal" to millions of Californians.

I lived in Portland when Oregon voters passed amendment 36; it changed the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I gathered with friends--straight and gay--the weekend after the election, and it was a somber occasion. I personally felt like I had been punched in the gut.

It was one thing to know (or suspect) that many people were opposed to my right to live my life with all the rights that they possessed... it was quite another to have those people then enshrine their belief in the very fabric of the society I lived in.

NEVER take your rights for granted... we live in a time and a place where the majority can still impose their will without mercy. The ACLU works for a society where our rights are truly inalienable.

Support them.