Column for May 17, 2007

The ACLU is more active than you think

As readers know, the ACLU has gotten some high profile coverage in this newspaper as it relates to interactions with the Town of Selma. Even though I attend most all town council meetings and write for the paper, I still have to wait to read the latest news in this paper.

For this reason, I have performed a few covert operations of my own. I did some research as well as surveillance. When nobody was around, I was able to perform my own "Super Secret, Secret Squirrel" type intelligence gathering. It turns out that the ACLU has a long history in this town as well as surrounding towns.

The first thing I learned was that former town manager Jeff White was fired because of his name. The ACLU threatened to sue if the town retained Mr. White, since they thought it was offensive to all minorities to have our top town employee not only being Caucasian, but his name exemplified the idea of White dominance. When the town was looking for a replacement manager, the ACLU assented to hiring Stan Farmer. It seems that the name Farmer can apply to any race and not make others feel left out. Obviously, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Caucasians can all labor as farmers. Thus, it was deemed acceptable to replace Mr. White with Mr. Farmer. All this time, I thought it was just that the town council members hated the movie, "Reservoir Dogs".

Another ACLU intrusion was into the Selma town motto of being "The Antique Mecca of the South". It seems that the ACLU took the side of many Muslims in the South who protested the use of that phrase. If we did not become "A Charming Place to Be", we would not only be the object of jihad, but some legal activity.

Apparently, it was confusing as to which way to face while performing ritualistic prayers. Some people in Virginia pointed their prayer rugs along I-95 South, people in Raleigh towards I-70 East, and people in South Carolina towards I-95 North. Still others retained the true direction of the true Mecca. All this time, I thought that the motto was dropped because it was a bit of a cliché, not to mention that it really could be viewed as offensive to Islam. It is amazing the things you can learn from investigative reporting.

Smithfield had a similar issue with names some time ago. The Ham and Yam Festival was not originally going to be so named. At first, it was going to be named for products actually grown here in North Carolina. The festival was going to be called "The North Carolina Barbecue and Sweet Potato(with an "e" if you are Dan Quayle) Festival". Besides the obvious problem of not being able to fit all of that title onto a banner, much less a good looking t-shirt, the ACLU got involved in that one, too.

It seems that the term "barbecue" was offensive to several people. The list of plaintiffs include women named "Susie Q" who thought it wrong for women named Barbie to be taking their place of prominence. Others who grill and char dead animals over coals or propane wanted to own the word "barbecue", even though they are actually "grilling".

Lastly, restaurant owners in the western part of North Carolina who serve far inferior roast pork with ketchup, teamed up with South Carolina eateries who inexplicably use some weird mustard, in a class action suit facilitated by the ACLU. They found the use of barbecue offensive to their inferior food products.

The organizers of the event did not want to cancel the festival and already had dedicated the event to dead pigs, so they started to rename it Ham and…something. In order to avoid some future lawsuit against the use of the term "sweet potato(with an "e" if you are Dan Quayle)" and to shorten the name, the festival organizers borrowed a Yankee term that just happened to rhyme with ham, and thus we have the "Ham and Yam Festival".

If you thought that the ACLU was only interested in squashing public prayer, you are mistaken. The proof is in the research. I have contacted the North Carolina chapter of the ACLU for an interview and they have not yet responded to accept or decline. I can only take that as a lack of interest on their part.