On Sunday, March 26, the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held its annual meeting in Carnegie Mellon's University Center. For the ACLU, this annual chapter meeting is seen as a convenient place to summarize the various accomplishments and events the organization has performed throughout the year and publicly recognize a few of their outstanding volunteers. On Sunday, however, they also took the opportunity to present the Marjorie H. Matson Award for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights to Randal G. Forrester. For any student attending Carnegie Mellon, regardless of his or her political views, this public meeting offered a chance to gain a better understanding of how an influential organization like the ACLU is run, in addition to providing an inside, albeit local, view of a group that so often appears in national media.

Randal Forrester is an significant figure in the fight for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual rights. He is a current member and former officer of the ACLU, and began or helped to begin countless initiatives, such as the Lambda Foundation and the Pennsylvania Governor's Council for Sexual Minorities. After being awarded the Marjorie H. Matson Award, Forrester gave a short speech during which he reminded the audience that although progress has been made, there is still a lot more ground to cover.

"It is easy to forget that gay bashing is a daily event in this country," said Forrester. "It is easy to forget that GLBT folk are still murdered for who they are."

The keynote speaker for this year's meeting was supposed to be the president of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen. However, she was not able to attend due to an unexpected illness. Her replacement was the Pittsburgh ACLU legal director, Witold (Vic) Walczak, who was a major figure in the recent debate in Dover, PA, over science classes teaching evolution and intelligent design. He presented a detailed overview and timeline of the case, revealing some of the tactics that he and other ACLU lawyers used when approaching the issue.

"It was very important that we did not misrepresent Intelligent Design," Walczak explained. "We didn't want to set up a straw man argument."

The Pittsburgh chapter itself netted about $332,000 of funds over the past year through events and other types of fundraising, and used that capital to lead a long list of legal battles in support of various human rights and free speech issues. In addition to listing these accomplishments, Chapter Directory Barb Feige pointed out a doubling in the size of membership since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It was clear that the people running this organization know something about making impact on the world, but as one might expect, politics play an important part in what the ACLU does. With the thousands of issues flying around the media, it seems almost impossible to dive in without being uncontrollably swept in some direction. However, if you are interested in finding out if you can take it, the ACLU is readily accepting new members, just be sure to hang on to your hat!

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