Dear Editor:

“Answer found in ACLU membership” by George Henry Kotz, West Islip (Letter to the Editor, Feb. 3 and 4) ignores the reality that after “thousands of men and women fought and died to obtain and protect” our freedoms, it is our obligation to these brave people on the front line to continue safeguarding those freedoms.

It would serve us well to remember that this is a nation built upon the ideas and efforts of many, and that we are not at liberty to pick and choose the laws we want to ignore or enforce at our convenience. Sometimes, however, idealogues will attempt to subvert this basic tenet of our system, and it is left to us on the home front to prevent the trampling of our rights as American citizens.

An effective means of achieving this is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the very organization that Mr. Kotz dismisses in his “answer” to Mr. Hill’s letter to the editor of Jan. 28. The ACLU exists to protect the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, one of which is the First Amendment that guarantees Mr. Kotz’s right to express his uninformed innuendo (“You claim that you are a proud member of the ACLU. Now I know your problem.”) that Mr. Hill has some sinister ulterior motive in rebutting his original letter to the editor.

Obviously, there are some people who consider the ACLU an inconvenient annoyance, perhaps even subversive. Could these people be opposed to our right of freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly? Do they believe we do not have equal protection under the law and can be discriminated against? How about due process and the right to privacy? It goes on…They might be quite happy living in the Peoples’ Republic of China.

ACLU founder Roger Baldwin wrote, “so long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.” I believe that very strongly. Accordingly, during the last presidential administration I became a member of the ACLU in its Guardian of Freedom program.

It’s not how big your flag is, it’s how you wave it.

Charles Litwin, Babylon Village.