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ACLU Head Likens Praying School Board Members to 9/11 Terrorists

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, August 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An American Civil Liberties Union director equated school board members who pray before their meetings with 9/11 al-Qaida terrorists.

In comments made on camera to local WAFB-TV, Joe Cook of the ACLU of Louisiana said, “They believe that they answer to a higher power, in my opinion,” referring to school board members who want to maintain the right to begin school board meetings with prayer. Answering to a “higher power” “is the kind of thinking that you had with the people who flew the airplanes into the buildings in this country, and the people who did the kind of things in London,” he maintained.

Alliance Defense Fund senior counsel Mike Johnson welcomed Cook’s comments as evidence of how extreme the ACLU really is. “It shows the ACLU has become more and more extreme and marginalized,” he said, as reported by WorldNetDaily.com. “So, to that extent, I like it when he talks, because he simply reveals who they are.”

Johnson explained that the ACLU comes “across as champions of liberty, but the truth of the matter is they are extremists. It's clear in a number of recent cases that the ACLU of Louisiana wants to impose a radical form of secularism that the Constitution doesn't require, and frankly, that people of this state are not willing to accept,” he added.

The ACLU is representing the parents of two students from the Tangipahoa Parish district, who sued the school board, claiming that prayer before board meetings was unconstitutional. The board is appealing a federal judge who agreed with the parents, ruling that prayer at the meetings violates the US Constitution.

The school board argues that the prayer is not discriminatory, because anyone of any religious perspective is free to lead the prayers.

See Joe Cook deliver his wacky statement, as broadcast by WAFB-TV:
http://www.jharrisdesigns.com/JoeCook'sCommentsTangipahoa.wmv

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