The annual fall specials allocations for various student groups was passed by the Government of the Student Body Wednesday, though not without some controversy.

The funding request that sparked the most debate among senators was from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Steve Erickson, off-campus, voted against the bill and said he did so primarily because he believed the ACLU should not receive any funding.

“Basically, I had a problem with student money going to their agenda,” he said.

Erickson said he did not agree with the beliefs of the ACLU as outlined in the book “Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

“They oppose any regulation of abortion, think child pornography may be distributed without any state interference, and they also have declared unconstitutional the singing of ‘Silent Night’ and any religious symbols on public property,” Erickson said.

He said the group also wants to take the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

“They also put out a report on civil liberties that were basically in tune with Marxist ideals, but were in the name of liberty, such as income redistribution and regulation of corporate investments,” he said.

Erickson said he felt the fall specials allocations bill should have been done differently.

“In hindsight, we probably should have motioned to divide the question — by divide the question, I mean take the allocation group by group,” Erickson said.

“The bylaws lay out the procedure for doing funding in a certain way. You can either accept the recommendations of the finance committee or send it back, recommending for an increase, decrease or zero funding,” he said.

Jeremy Williams, finance director of GSB, said he saw no reason why any member of the senate should have voted against the bill.

“If [Erickson] had a problem with a group receiving funding, he should have made a motion to send a recommendation back to the finance committee for zero funding,” Williams said.

He also said there was no legal basis to deny funding to the ACLU.

“As long as they meet all our rules, we have to fund them,” Williams said. “We can’t say we can’t fund you because of your beliefs because of the freedom of speech. We just fund groups based on whether they passed all our rules, and this group passed all our rules.”

Marcia Johnson, off-campus, said the beliefs of certain groups have nothing to do with whether they get funding.

“As far as student organizations go, as long as an organization meets the necessary criteria in the bylaws, we can’t deny them funding,” she said.

Johnson said she did not see any wrongdoing on the part of the ACLU.

“The things ACLU has done in the past has nothing to do with the group on campus. They are not state affiliated; they are just a local organization on campus,” she said.

“The big idea behind it is to promote programs that promote diverse points of view, and ACLU is one of those programs,” Johnson said.