Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Apparently “Freedom of Speech” and “Freedom of the Press” are two foreign concepts for some people (“Paper needs higher standards for letter writer”) on April 25 by Amy Sullivan.
In her letter, Sullivan calls for a complete censure of any of my letters to the editor and blasts the Bulletin for not having “higher standards” for apparently allowing the publication of any letter that contradicts anything submitted by Mr. Frank Aquila (“Contends ACLU targets Christianity”) April 19.
Censorship seems to be the weapon of choice when someone contradicts their particular views on anything they believe in.
Sullivan seems to agree with Aquila’s contention that the ACLU has but one objective and that is “to make America a godless society.” Sullivan even suggests the proof lies in the Hollywood movie (and an act of fiction) “God is not Dead 2” and should be taken as fact. It’s a movie Amy, it’s a movie.
I do not know of ANY attempts by the ACLU to close down ANY Christian Church for that congregation’s pursuit of their religion. I understand one of the pursuits of the ACLU as an organization, is opposing government preference for religion over non-religion, or for particular faiths over others. The Separation of church and state is only one of its pursuits. Apparently this is the main concern of people like Aquila and Sullivan. I assume a statue of Jesus on the steps of City Hall or Moses and the Ten Commandments in the entrance to the City Police Department would be OK with these two. I wonder if they read Saturday’s Bulletin where there was an article of the ACLU coming to aid of a Trump supporter who had been stopped from displaying a Trump Flag too soon before the election? Bet that didn’t even register.
Sullivan also contends, like Aquila, that the ACLU, Democrats and President Obama are all something other than Christians, she claims she would have a hard time finding even one Christian in the ACLU challenging me to prove otherwise. OK, here are a couple of facts I got from a good friend of mine on that subject:
a) The founder of the ACLU was a Christian. Roger Nash Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU, was also the founder of the Boston Young Men’s Christian Union.
b) Current ACLU executive director Anthony Romero is from Puerto Rico and his family are Christian.
c) There is no specific data on the religious affiliation of ACLU membership. However, 83% of Americans identify as Christian. Therefore, one could easily project that roughly 415,000 of the 500,000 members of the ACLU come from a similar background.
d) The Washington Post shows that 63% of Democrats are Christians 63% is by all definitions a majority!
So where are my “blatant lies” Ms. Sullivan?
As for my insult towards Christians. I assume it was the comment I made “...Christian God sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself”. Let me explain how I came to that conclusion. When I was attending Catholic School, I once asked the Nun teacher, “Who was God?” She quickly explained to me that God consisted of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. (Holy Ghost has since been replaced by “Holy Spirit”. I assume because “Spirit” is more associated with Casper the Friendly Ghost rather than plain “Ghost”, more closely associated with something from the movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street”). No need in scaring the hell out of kids any more than the visions of hell they are already being scared with, right? Now, the Christian God being explained to me as a 3 Part God, to my logic, this would mean God Part 1 sent God Part 2 to be sacrificed for God Part 1 in order to save mankind from the wrath of God Part 1 for all their sins. Don’t know what God Part 3 had to do with any of this. Maybe Sullivan can explain further.  Meanwhile I would suggest to Sullivan to study the fundamental rights in a Democracy , especially the part of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.

Larry Baca
Manteca