Laws don’t stop the American Civil Liberties Union. In fact, if the current laws of our nation or states don’t ascribe to the ACLU’s agenda, it changes them. And not in the usual democratic process of legislation.

No, behind the everyday American’s back — through the judiciary.

What the ACLU exists to do is fill the necessary role of being “our nation’s guardian of liberty” (as described in its mission statement) — the only thing is, the ACLU is so blinded by its agenda, it’s not fit for the job.

On Saturday, the Arizona Chapter of the ACLU will observe its 50th anniversary. Is there really cause for celebration, though? Should we, the citizens of Arizona, the citizens of a free democratic nation, celebrate an organization that uses the cover of “our guardian of liberty” to argue legitimate cases, while beneath that appealing surface, it runs a stream of cases protecting pedophile organizations and producers of child pornography?

If the ACLU had its way in Arizona and across America, we might live in a very different nation. The story below, reported by World Net Daily, is disturbingly true but gives a taste of what kind of liberties the ACLU protects.

Twelve years ago, Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old boy, was living in Massachusetts with his parents when one fall day he was kidnapped by two men, Salvatore Sicari and Charles Jaynes.

Directly after the boy was snatched, Sicari and Jaynes accessed the Web site for the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) — an organization that promotes sexual relations between adult men and young boys. Sicari and Jaynes then tried to sexually assault Jeffrey. When Jeffrey fought back, the two men choked him to death with a gasoline-soaked rag.

Sicari and Jaynes then drove to Jaynes’ house in New Hampshire where they molested the dead boy’s body. Then they drove to Maine where they dumped his corpse into a river. His mutilated body was found days later.

When Jeffrey’s parents sued NAMBLA, saying that their son might still be alive if it hadn’t been for NAMBLA’s “educational” information on how men can have sex with little boys, the ACLU came to NAMBLA’s defense, saying NAMBLA could not be held accountable for people’s actions after they had read NAMBLA’s publications.

I am not sure how the ACLU rationalized this decision. Nonetheless, this isn’t the only time that the ACLU has defended organizations or people who exploit children. As early as 1982, in New York v. Ferber, the ACLU argued that child pornography is protected by the First Amendment — thankfully the U.S. Supreme Court did not agree.

Or what about the ACLU arguing — as it frequently does — that there should be no Internet restrictions for children in public libraries, which would allow them to access pornography at any time?

“Libraries are our nation’s storehouses of knowledge,” said Ann Brick of the northern California ACLU. “Their mission is to make that knowledge available to young and old alike. Filters are fundamentally antithetical to that mission.”

Pornography is not even comparable to the academic knowledge of language, history and science. Psychologists know that pornography leads to subsequent destructive behavior — yet, if it was up to the ACLU, all children would have uninhibited access to a storehouse of pornographic Web sites. Past president of the national ACLU, Nadine Strossen argued that children could even benefit from pornography if used in an “appropriate context.”

Protecting the producers of child pornography does not seem to match the job description of “our guardian of liberty.” If the ACLU truly wants Arizonans to celebrate its 50 years of protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, perhaps they should encourage the national organization to stop legislating its radical agenda from the bench and to start protecting the freedom of children — not those who exploit them.

Reach Catherine at catherine.e.smith@asu.edu.