This article addresses the debate about the status of American Sign Language (ASL) as an example of ideological beliefs that impact linguistic judgments and policies. It also discusses the major challenges to the status of ASL with respect to formal legislative recognition, its utility as a medium of instruction, and its status as a legitimate "foreign" language. The author argues that these challenges are both empirically and conceptually problematic. Further, he suggests that resistance to ASL is grounded in large part in a misunderstanding of the nature of human language and of the nature, structure, and history of natural sign languages in general and ASL in particular. (Contains 16 notes and 2 figures.)