Got an email from Marion Hammer

In the ACLU’s view, targeting a nonprofit advocacy group and seeking to deny it financial services because it promotes a lawful activity (the use of guns) violates the First Amendment. Because we believe the governor’s actions, as alleged, threaten the First Amendment rights of all advocacy organizations, the ACLU on Friday filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the NRA’s right to have its day in court.
The state has asked the court to dismiss the case without even permitting discovery into the administration’s actions. Our brief supports the NRA’s right to discovery on its First Amendment claims. To be clear, the ACLU does not oppose reasonable restrictions on guns (you can read more about that here). Our position in this case has nothing to do with our opinions on the NRA’s policies — it’s about the First Amendment rights of all organizations to engage in political advocacy without fear that the state will use its regulatory authority to penalize them for doing so.

New York State Can’t Be Allowed to Stifle the NRA’s Political Speech.

It is not like the ACLU suddenly found Jesus and have seen the error of their ways, bit it applies to more earthly endeavors:

Political advocacy organizations like the NRA (or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood) need basic business services, like insurance and banking, to operate. The NRA says that the state, using its regulatory powers over those industries, is threatening financial companies that do business with the NRA.

The NRA points to both public and non-public actions taken by the Cuomo administration to penalize it for its views. State officials issued press releases and sent threatening letters to banks and insurance companies, and also allegedly communicated “backchannel threats” to companies with ties to the NRA, warning that they would face regulatory action if they failed to end their relationships with the organization

The ACLU is smart enough to realize politic fluctuates and “friendly” elected officials change opinion or get removed and get substituted by other that may not take kindly ACLU’s views on things. And with Media not having the powerful political hammer blows it had once, they cannot count on public outrage to save them from the same fascist principles to be applied on them.

So, more than nuanced principles based on the Bill of Rights, we are seeing a good dose of self-preservation in action. I really don’t care one way or the other as long as they help shut down the Society of St. Tammany Mafiosi.