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Harry
Reid (D-NV) has filed on the Department of Defense funding bill which contains
the dangerous hate (thought) crimes expansion legislation. This means that the full Senate could vote
very soon on dangerous hate crimes legislation that threatens religious freedom
and the constitutional principle of “equal justice under law.” It’s also an insult to our brave troops
fighting overseas to sneak such controversial social engineering into troop
funding legislation.
Call
both
your senators today and urge them to vote against hate crimes!
Also,
sign FRC’s petition against hate
crimes.
HT:
FRC
While
the nation is consumed with health care “reform” and the war in Afghanistan,
Congress today snuck through special “protections” for sexual orientation in
the Department of Defense funding bill. Once
the Senate approves this bill, sexual orientation will be a protected status
under Federal hate (thought) crimes law.
The AP
reports.
Such
hate crimes legislation threatens religious freedom because it could be used to
prosecute motives, and it threatens the principle of “equal justice under law”
because it creates special protections based solely on sexual behavior.
See
how your representative
voted on hate crimes expansion (NOTE: a “yes” vote is against hate crimes
expansion and a “no” vote is for expansion).
Congressman
Mike Pence (R-IN) spoke out
against the shameful tactic of attaching such controversial social policy to an
essential Defense funding bill (which our troops in Afghanistan desperately
need). See the video here.
ABC News reports that
Congressman Barney Frank is pushing legislation that would force employers to accommodate
homosexuals and cross-dressers. Despite
supposed religious exemptions in the legislation, this bill would force many employers
to legitimize sexual behavior that they might find offensive or inappropriate.
As
if there was any doubt that the radical homosexual agenda is completely
incompatible with religious liberty, World Net
Daily’s report that a man is suing a Bible publisher because certain
passages of Scripture disturb his mental state (i.e. conscience) should dispel such
doubts.
The
Hill reports that several senators have introduced legislation that would
require businesses to accommodate and legitimize many forms of sexual deviancy
in the work place. Similar legislation in
several states has allowed male cross dressers to enter women’s restrooms. Although fighting workplace discrimination
always sounds good, ENDA would pose a huge threat to religious liberty and
public safety.
Richard
Cohen explains. Excerpt:
The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to
reassure politically significant groups -- blacks, Hispanics, Jews, gays, etc.
-- that someone cares about them and takes their fears seriously. That's nice.
It does not change the fact, though, that what's being punished is thought or
speech. Johns is dead no matter what von Brunn believes. The penalty for murder
is severe, so it's not as if the crime is not being punished. The added
"late hit" of a hate crime is without any real consequence, except as
a precedent for the punishment of belief or speech. Slippery slopes are
supposedly all around us, I know, but this one is the real McCoy.
hat
tip: FRC
ADF reports. News like this shows why conscience
protections for doctors and other medical personnel are so necessary.
On
Thursday, July 16, the Senate voted on an amendment by Sen. Leahy which added
dangerous and unnecessary hate crimes legislation to a Department of Defense funding
bill. See how
both your senators voted on adding this hate crimes amendment to defense
spending legislation.
Thank
your senators if they voted “No,” and if they voted “Yes” respectfully share
your disappointment. You should also
keep this vote in mind the next time your senators face reelection.
UPDATE: Here's the vote tally. Follow the link to see the vote details.
Senate
Vote on the Leahy Amendment (S.A. 189) to add hate (thought) crimes legislation
to the Dept. of Defense funding bill
July 16, 2009
Full Results
|
|
|
Yeas
|
|
Nays
|
|
PRES
|
|
NV
|
|
Republican
|
|
5
|
|
28
|
|
—
|
|
7
|
|
Democratic
|
|
57
|
|
—
|
|
—
|
|
2
|
|
Independent
|
|
1
|
|
—
|
|
—
|
|
—
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|
TOTALS
|
|
63
|
|
28
|
|
—
|
|
9
|
As the New
York Times reports, the Senate has passed into law dangerous hate crimes
legislation into a Defense Department funding bill. Excerpt:
The Senate has agreed to expand the
definition of hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual
orientation and gender identity as part of a Pentagon policy measure that is
becoming a magnet for tough social issues.
Ironically,
President Obama has threatened
to veto the bill because it sets aside funding for the new state-of-the-art
F-22 Raptor fighter jet.
FRC
explains why “hate crimes” laws are a threat to religious freedom.
The
Caucus blog of the New York Times reports.
Excerpt:
Senate Democrats said on Monday that they
would seek to broaden the federal hate crimes law to protect victims of attacks
based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disabilities.
To lift the chances of passage, Democrats
said the legislation, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act,
would be attached as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill – a
must-pass measure.
Senator
Orin Hatch (R-UT) published a helpful analysis
and criticism of the hate crimes bill in The Spectrum. Excerpt:
The House passed a hate-crimes bill on
April 29, and a similar bill has been introduced in the Senate. Both would
create a new federal crime for willfully causing bodily injury (or attempting
to do so) because of the victim's actual or perceived "race, color,
religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or
disability." A person unfamiliar with the hate-crimes debate reading these
provisions would likely respond by asking, "Wait, isn't that already a
crime?" At that point, they'd officially be one step ahead of the
proponents of these bills.
. . .
Both bills introduced this year would also
expand the definition of a hate crime to cover offenses motivated by a victim's
"gender identity."
At best, this legislation unnecessarily
intrudes on the efforts of state governments and creates crimes that are
impractical, if not impossible, to prosecute. At worst, it would be
unconstitutional.
Also, while both bills ostensibly prohibit
prosecution for any activities that are protected by the First Amendment, the
fact that they punish certain motives on the basis of political and social
viewpoints calls their constitutionality into question.
Read
Hatch’s full
analysis here.
OneNewsNow
reports. Excerpt:
"This is a clear affront and a
violation of the fundamental religious convictions of the owners of
pharmacies," he contends. "No pharmacist owner should ever have to
choose between saving a human life and keeping their shop and business."
Many consider the Ninth Circuit to be the
most liberal court in the U.S.
Brad
Dacus PJI
"This radical decision by the Ninth
Circuit gives the green light to liberal state legislators and regulators to be
able to clamp down on medical and other professionals with sincere religious
convictions against supporting abortions," Dacus adds.
If the decision is upheld, pharmacists and
owners with a conscience will have to choose between violating the law or going
out of business. Dacus hopes the case will be accepted by the U.S. Supreme
Court.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
President Barack Obama opened the White
House to hundreds of gay activists Monday, promising them that by the time he
leaves office they would "have pretty good feelings" about his
administration.
During an event to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of what gay activists consider the launch of their political
movement – several nights of violent riots in and around a New York gay bar –
Obama rattled off several policies he plans to implement to please his
homosexual constituency.
"I want you to know that I expect and
hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises
my administration keeps," he said. "We've been in office six months
now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over … you guys will
have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."
Among those promises the president is
pursuing, he said: Overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act, passing a
law to mandate health-care and other benefits to homosexual domestic partners,
repealing "don't ask, don't tell" and even "rescinding the
discriminatory ban on entry to the United States based on HIV status."
OneNewsNow also
reports.
Robert
Knight explains. Excerpt:
Among its many defects, the proposed
federal hate crimes bill virtually ensures that some defendants will face
double jeopardy, whatever the outcome of their cases. It all depends on the
whims of the folks occupying the Attorney General’s office, who may want to
score political points at a defendant’s expense.
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention
Act (S. 909) now before the Senate, establishes “thought crime,” violates equal
protection by making some victims more important than others, elevates “sexual
orientation” and “gender identity” to be equivalent to civil rights categories
like race, and greatly expands the federal role in criminal law.
In short, it’s a grab bag of ways to
violate genuine constitutional rights while addressing a non-issue. There is no
compelling evidence that bias-motivated crimes are not being handled properly
and perpetrators punished.
Keep
reading the full
article here.
The
President of the Family Research Council submitted
excellent testimony to a recent Senate committee held to discuss hate
crimes legislation. Excerpt:
Hate crime laws force the court to guess
the thoughts and beliefs which lie behind a crime, instead of looking at the
crime itself, in order to prosecute and convict someone of a hate crime.
Violent crimes are already punishable by law. "Hate crime" laws put
the perpetrator's thoughts and beliefs on trial. Hate crime laws are tantamount
to federally prosecuting "thought crimes." The Family Research
Council believes that all crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law, and that every violent crime has some form of hate behind it. All
around the country, crimes are being prosecuted in the state justice systems.
American justice is being done. There is simply no need for a federal hate
crimes law.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sent a
letter to key leaders in the religious community asking them to oppose the
bill.
"Please tell your congregation this
legislation is not about 'hate' (all violent crimes are hateful); it is about
taking away your freedom to speak and preach biblical truth," DeMint
wrote. "It will take away your right to say that some things are wrong. We
need millions of Americans to call and email their Senators, especially Democrat
Senators who are pushing this legislation."
OneNewsNow
reports. Excerpt:
"The crimes that took place [Tiller
murder and Holocaust Museum shootings] have absolutely nothing to do with the
content of the hate crimes bill, which only really is focusing on the special
treatment and special privileges of protection to be granted to people because
of their homosexuality or transsexual status," he contends.
Dacus adds that "the bill is not about
providing equal treatment -- it's providing unequal treatment," which he
believes is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States
Constitution.
"The hate crimes bill accomplishes
nothing except to intimidate and silence legitimate, peaceful opposition to the
never-ending demands of the gay and transsexual activists," he concludes.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
The commission [U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights], not known for being on the side of social conservatives on policy
issues, has an ally in Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. He pointed out that hate-crimes
legislation fundamentally changes the idea of equal justice under law to
arbitrary justice based on the race, religion or sexual orientation of the
victim or the criminal.
"It really forces our courts and our
judges to begin to anticipate what people were thinking when they committed a
crime, rather than whether they committed the crime or not."
But he said the worst part of the
hate-crimes bill is it could restrict free speech, "because if a pastor
stands up and preaches that the Word of God says that homosexuality is wrong,
that pastor could be accused of hate speech and could even be accused or
charged with inducing someone to commit a crime against a homosexual."
Urge
your member
of Congress to oppose hate crimes!
Also, visit FightHateCrimes.com
to find out how you can help oppose this dangerous threat to religious freedom
and “equal justice under law.”
Click here
to view the Democrat press conference in support of hate crimes.
CitizenLink reports. The following excerpt quotes Ashley Horn of
Focus on the Family Action:
"As we've seen in other nations where
such laws are passed, they can have a chilling effect on the free speech of
those who would simply share from the Bible God's views on issues such as
homosexuality," she explained. "Hate-crimes laws are unnecessary in a
civil society like ours based on the rule of law.
"All crimes are hate crimes," she
added, "To give special status to certain groups of people allows courts
to reach beyond punishing people for the illegal acts they commit and judge
them for what they may or may not be thinking as they commit those acts."
Our
sources on the Hill assure us that Congress will try to push hate crimes
through before the August recess. Hate
(thought) crimes are a tool of legitimizing sexual deviancy and offering
special legal benefits based on sexual behavior. It also poses a serious threat to religious
liberty and “equal justice under law.”
Call
your
representative today and urge him or her to vote AGAINST dangerous and unnecessary
“hate crimes” legislation!
CNS News
reports. Some of our readers will
remember that many conservatives were concerned about the opening of the new
Capitol Visitor Center and whether our nation’s important religious heritage would
be ignored or distorted. The provisions
on this bill reflect assurances given to concerned conservatives so let’s hope
Congress lives up to their commitments to accurately represent our heritage.
The Southern
Voice reports. Apparently proponents
of expanding hate (thought) crimes protections to “actual or perceived” gender
identity and sexual orientation are concerned about conservative backlash to
dangerous hate crimes legislation.
According to the homosexual activist group HRC, hate crimes legislation
could be sneaked into other legislation as an amendment. This hate crimes bill would endanger
religious liberty and also violate the constitutional principle of “equal
justice under law,” and must be opposed by vigilant and active citizens.
CitizenLink reports. Despite a supposed “religious exemption” in
the newly passed “gay marriage” law in New Hampshire, religious liberties are
still gravely threatened. The truth is, state
sanctioned same-sex marriage is inherently dangerous to religious liberties. There is no “religious exemption” that could
change that fact.
And
as OneNewsNow
reports, NH legislators who voted for the same-sex marriage law could face
serious political repercussions in future elections.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
Two years ago, the United Kingdom passed a
law that forced adoption agencies to consider placing children with homosexual
couples. An exemption that protected religious groups has just expired, forcing
several faith-based adoption agencies to close rather than violate their
convictions.
Fox News reports
on this disturbing infringement on religious liberty. Normally, stories about the state clamping
down on “house churches” come from places like Communist China, not the United
States of America which is supposed to guarantee “free exercise of religion.” Chanel 10 San Diego also reports.
Matt
Barber explains. Excerpt:
This underscores the fact that all
hate-crimes laws, both state and federal, inarguably advance
"unequal" protection of the laws. This flies in the face of the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
New Hampshire
In
a surprising but welcome twist, it appears the New Hampshire same-sex marriage
bill might be stopped
in its tracks, at least for now.
Governor Lynch had promised to veto the original same-sex marriage bill
if some protections were not inserted for religious freedom. The NH Senate quickly adopted the changes,
but the NH House rejected the bill by a vote of 188-186. Maggie
Gallagher explains today’s events at NRO as does CitizenLink.
California
The
Supreme Court of California is expected
to soon announce its ruling on whether the recently passed ballot
initiative to ban same-sex marriage will be upheld. Not only is traditional marriage at stake,
but whether judges will be allowed to usurp their Constitutional power and
overrule the clear will of the people regarding the definition of marriage.
Washington, DC
Though
it is not a state (although some would like to treat it like one through
unconstitutional means), the District of Columbia has become an epicenter of
the growing rift over the definition of marriage. The DC City Council recently voted to
institute same-sex marriage in the District and its resolution will become law
if Congress fails to act. While many African
Americans in the District are outraged over the prospect of “gay marriage,”
a bi-partisan group of Congressmen proposed legislation to preserve the
traditional definition of marriage in the District at a press conference
today.
Maine
Voters
in Maine might get the chance
to vote on the traditional definition of marriage if enough signatures can
be gathered. The Maine Marriage Alliance
and others are hoping to collect 70,000 signatures or more so the recent law
enacting same-sex marriage in Maine can be overturned. Click
here for more information on the signature campaign.
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