HEADLINE: ACLU WILL DEFEND MAN/BOY LOVE GROUP IN CURLEY LAWSUIT
The Boston Globe
August 31, 2000, Thursday ,
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Correspondent
The American Civil Liberties Union has stepped in to defend a $200 million federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered East Cambridge boy against a controversial group that advocates sex between adult men and boys, calling it an important case for freedom of speech and association.
The ACLU of Massachusetts says it will use the same arguments to defend the North American Man/Boy Love Association that were used before the US Supreme Court in the 1960s to protect the NAACP.
The civil liberties group will also act as a surrogate for NAMBLA, allowing its members to defend themselves in court while remaining anonymous.
The family of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley sued NAMBLA in federal court in mid-May, alleging that the group and its Web site - which is now offline - incited the attempted molestation and murder of the boy on Oct. 1, 1997. One of the two men serving life in prison for the murder, Charles Jaynes, reportedly viewed the NAMBLA Web site shortly before the crime and had NAMBLA publications in his possession.
ACLU officials, though, say NAMBLA members deny encouraging coercion, rape, or violence.
"For us it is a fundamental First Amendment case," John Roberts, executive director of the Massachusetts branch of the ACLU, said yesterday. "It has to do with communications on a Web site and material that does not promote any kind of criminal behavior whatsoever."
It is a crime in Massachusetts to have sex with children under the age of 16, laws that NAMBLA wants repealed.
Members of NAMBLA contacted the ACLU shortly after the lawsuit was filed, and the civil rights group formally entered the case within the last week.
The ACLU's involvement in the case was welcomed as good news by Curley family attorney Lawrence Frisoli of Cambridge, who said he has had difficulty trying to serve NAMBLA and its organizers with court papers.
"I am actually happy that someone is defending NAMBLA," Frisoli said yesterday. "Now we can go forward with discovery in the case."
One of Frisoli's stated goals for the lawsuit is to "flush out" NAMBLA's leaders, who once held public meetings but have become increasingly circumspect as publicity about the Curley lawsuit has grown. Yet Frisoli may not get the additional information he is seeking if the civil liberties group prevails in court.
ACLU board member Harvey Silverglate said yesterday that the group's attorneys will try to block any attempt by the Curleys to get NAMBLA's membership lists or other materials identifying members, citing US Supreme Court cases from the 1960s that protected the NAACP's civil rights activities in the South.
In two cases during the civil rights era, the Supreme Court held that the NAACP could not be forced to disclose its membership lists because to do so would be an unacceptable encroachment on the right to freedom of assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Silverglate also said the ACLU will use another Supreme Court case, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, to block the Curleys' attempt to hold NAMBLA responsible for the actions of Jaynes, 25, of Brockton, and the other convicted killer in the case, Salvatore Sicari, 24, of Cambridge.
In that case, the merchants of Claiborne County, Mississippi, sued the NAACP, contending it had incited its members to physically attack and destroy the property of blacks who did not honor a boycott of white-owned businesses.
State courts in Mississippi gave the merchants a huge monetary award that would have bankrupted the NAACP in much the same way that Frisoli has vowed to bankrupt NAMBLA and put it out of business, Silverglate said. But the Supreme Court overturned the verdict.
"It was one of the most important decisions on freedom of association," he said. "The court held that any action by an individual can only be held against the individual, not the group."
The ACLU has caused public stirs in the past by defending neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members. NAMBLA is just the sort of publicly unpopular group whose free speech and association rights need to be defended most, Silverglate said.
"This case is exactly where the rubber meets the road," he said. "They [NAMBLA] don't encourage breaking the law. They are a political advocacy organization."
Attempts by the Globe to contact NAMBLA have proven unsuccessful, although a person claiming to be a member of the organization attempted to arrange an anonymous interview through the American Friends Service Committee, a human rights organization based in Cambridge.
The Globe declined the interview, however, when the person refused to divulge his name or offer any other proof of an affiliation with NAMBLA.
In the past, however, NAMBLA officials have insisted that they do not advocate forcible or coercive sex. Their main goal, they say, is the abolition of age-of-consent laws that classify sex with children as rape.
NAMBLA representatives have said they believe boys as young as 8 are capable of deciding for themselves whether to have consensual sex with an older man.
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