Why This ACLU State Leader Resigned

Maya Dillard Smith
Share:

A few years ago, Maya Dillard Smith invited controversy when she argued the Ku Klux Klan had the right to sponsor a highway trash pickup.

Last weekend, she did it again by announcing to a liberal Atlanta news outlet she was resigning her post as interim director of the Georgia ACLU over its advocacy for “transgender rights.” She said the ACLU has become “a special interest organization that promotes not all, but certain progressive rights. In that way, it is a special interest organization not unlike the conservative right, which creates a hierarchy of rights based on who is funding the organization’s lobbying activities.”

“Transgender rights,” she added, have “intersectionality” with other competing rights, particularly women’s rights. She also said she shared her own personal experience with the ACLU in which she took her own daughters to the bathroom only to have a group of men who claimed to be transgender come in after them.

“[T]hree transgender young adults over six feet with deep voices entered,” she said in a statement announcing her resignation. “My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer.

“Despite additional learning I still have to do, I believe there are solutions that provide can provide accommodations for transgender people and balance the need to ensure women and girls are safe from those who might have malicious intent.

“I understood it to be the ACLU’s goal to delicately balance competing rights to ensure that any infringements are narrowly tailored, that they do not create a hierarchy of rights, and that we are mindful of unintended consequences. Thus, I found myself principally and philosophically unaligned with the organization.”

The Georgia ACLU has already begun searching for her replacement. The announcement came at a time when the organization has been applying pressure to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who vetoed a bill to provide religious freedom over the gay marriage issue, and while it continues to wage a battle with North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory over that state’s HB 2 “bathroom law.”

“Cheryl” Courtney-Evans, a Georgia transgender advocate, said he thought Smith “did the right thing” by resigning.

“If she couldn’t defend our rights any better than that, she deserves to leave—she doesn’t need to be in that position,” he said. “The ACLU is supposed to stand up for everybody’s rights—if we’ve got a president and an attorney general that recognizes our right to be, what do we need with her then?”

Smith poured gasoline on the fire, however, by launching her own organization, called Finding a Middle Ground. Its website features a video that includes a young girl discussing her confusion over the transgender bathroom issue:

“Boys in the girls’ bathroom? I don’t know about that. There’s some boys who feel like they’re girls on the inside, and there’s some boys who are just perverts.”

Share:

Related topics:

See an error in this article?

Send us a correction

To contact us or to submit an article

Click and play our featured shows

WATCH: The Lost Ark of the Covenant in the Holy City?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APYfdpgkJms BYLINE: ALL ISRAEL NEWS STAFF This video aims to present various possibilities for the current location of the elusive Ark of the Covenant, mentioned throughout the Old Testament but most notably in the Book of Exodus. Does the Ark...

Mandisa Is in Heaven, Still Worshipping Jesus

If you are in crisis, please call 988 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You are not alone. On the surface, contemporary Christian singer Mandisa epitomized success. She became a musical star after her appearance on “American Idol” in 2006 and won a Grammy for...

Celebrating Mandisa: Faithful, Resilient and Triumphant

The recent passing of Mandisa Hundley, known to many as simply Mandisa, has left a hurt in the hearts of family, friends and fans worldwide. As authorities continue their investigation into her unexpected death, the focus remains on celebrating her...

Jonathan Cahn: Israel, Iran and End Times Prophecy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfdc2g8Jwfc&t=1714s There’s something much greater and deeper to the Iranian attack on Israel than meets the eye. While news outlets can only provide the basic facts and propose diplomatic solutions, Rabbi and prophetic voice Jonathan Cahn says that what happened...

1 2 3 4 5 97 98 99 100
Scroll to Top