House passes "hate crimes" legislation

On September 14, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 223-199 to pass "hate crimes" legislation, which would offer special protections under the law to people because of their sexual orientation or perceived gender identity.

If passed by the Senate and signed by the President, this measure would use resources of the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and prosecute violent crimes against gays, lesbians, transvestites, and transsexuals. Essentially, this new law subverts "equal justice under the law." When an 80-year-old grandmother is mugged on the street, her case would receive less attention and fewer resources than if she were a lesbian or had undergone a sex change. In the eyes of the law, heterosexuals would become second-class citizens -- less important in the eyes of the law.

Already, a similar bill is pending in the Senate, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (S 1145). Revealing the special resources given to investigate crimes against homosexuals, the Senate bill states, "The Attorney General may award grants to assist State, local, and Indian law enforcement officials with the extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes."

Sadly, this is not the first time that the House or the Senate have sought to pass a measure elevating the status of homosexual citizenship. Last year, pro-homosexual advocates in the U.S. House included "hate crimes" legislation (the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act") as an amendment in the 2005 Defense Authorization Bill. By including the measure inside a defense spending bill, they recognized that a Presidential veto was far less likely. Ultimately, that amendment was stripped from the spending bill during conference committee.

Building on this political tactic, the House has now passed "hate crimes" legislation as an amendment to the "Children's Safety Act" (HR 3132), which seeks to protect children from pedophiles.

The "hate crimes" legislation was filed by Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), IIeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), John Conyers (D-MI), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, told reporters, "Criminalizing thoughts as well as actions, and creating special categories of victims, are contrary to our entire system of laws ... It is shocking that a bill designed to protect children from sexual predators is now being used to protect the sexual preference of homosexuals."

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praised the House's vote. "Our nation was founded on the principle that all are created equal, all are entitled to the protection of our laws, and all are entitled to justice," she said. "It violates this principle to have individuals in our country targeted for violence because of who they are, the color of their skin, how they worship, or who they love. The perpetrators of violence intend to send a message to certain members of our community that they are not welcome."

Call your Senators and encourage them to vote against Senate Bill S.1145 or any hate crimes legislation that treats heterosexual victims as second-class citizens.

Also, contact House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and encourage him to do everything within his power to prevent this "hate crimes" amendment from being passed through conference committee.

Also, preaching against homosexuality could not be a hate crime, because there is no "crime" being committed - except for the intellectual waste and moral degeneracy of hating someone for who they are.

How can preaching against homosexuality be construed as hating some ONE?

I can disagree with Communism without hating individual communists.

You sound confused over the difference between finding a "lifestyle" abhorrent and hating individuals.

I don't like thieves, liars, rapists or murderers, but I am not suffering from " the intellectual waste and moral degeneracy of hating people" over their moral degeneracy in those instances, either.

Homosexuals already have full protection under the law. The laws apply to them exactly the same way they apply to anyone else. Point out one criminal law that excuses that offense against homosexuals. You can't do it.

We've already seen hate crimes legislation result in criminal convictions for speech by Christian preachers in Sweden and Canada. It will happen here, too. This is thought crime legislation, nothing more.

As far as hate goes, I've read some of the most appalling expressions of hatred ever uttered, but by gay activists concerning conservative Christians. That Morford character who writes for a San Francisco newspaper specializes in such expression.

Already various gay activists have claimed that merely stating that same-sex attraction is a disorder (which is the official position of the Catholic Church, found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a hateful thing. This was stated, for instance, in a letter written early in 2004 by a group of Catholic priests to the hierarchy of the United States saying they were distressed by an increasingly vicious and vile attitude toward homosexuals in official Catholic documents. As an example of "vile" and "vicious" language they listed, among other phrases, stating that homosexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered". The official documents of the US Episcopal unofficial delegation to the recent summit meeting in England over the US/Canadian Anglican gay bishop ordination and same sex "marriages" and the Lutheran documents on similar issues cite as authoritative books that claim it is sinful and immoral, hateful, not to consider homosexual orientation normal (the way they put is is that to claim that only heterosexual attraction is normal is thereby to be hateful toward homosexuals).

It ought to be obvious that dispassionate statements of Christian moral beliefs about the disorderedness of homosexuality should not be considered "hateful." But it is not obvious to all and that's why this legislation is ominous.

Some denunciations of homosexuals (including some on Free Republic) are indeed hateful and those supposed Christians who say vile and vicious things about homosexuals only hasten the day when those of us who try to be dispasionate and truthful about it ("it's a disorder") will be tarred with their broad brush.

So, from two directions: from anti-homosexual extremists who do in fact try to counter gay activists with hateful words and from supposedly tolerant and compassionate pro-gay heterosexuals who write about heterosexism as a sin and who say that homosexual orientation is perfectly normal and that anyone who says it is a disorder is immoral--from both sides the ground has been established for an agressive gay activist prosecutor to accuse even the Catholic Church's official teaching ("it's a disorder but those afflicted with it deserve compassion") as hateful.

I agree that the very idea of hate crimes is bad law--people should be punished for doing hateful acts, for murdering, assaulting, deceiving etc.--for their actions, not their thoughts. I agree that there shouldn't be any hate-crimes legislation. But this particular move, which has been in the offing now for at least 10 years beginning in Sweden and then Canada, is very troubling because it is only a matter of time, if it passes the Senate, before some attempt will be made to incriminate even the most dispassionate statement of Evangelical and Catholic moral theology: that homosexual orientation is a disorder. The first attempts to prosecute it probably will fail, but the gays will not give up until every voice that says they suffer from a disorder is silenced. Those who refuse to be intimidated will have to be silenced then by prosecution, by eminent domain confiscation of their churches etc.

But Christians and Freepers who seem hell-bent on hastening this day by the intemperate and yes, sometimes hateful language they use toward gays ought to put a sock in it. We've got enough of a problem with the gays who want to silence us without furnishing them the rope with which to hang us.

I do not believe the solution to being repeatedly cowed by the onslaught of gays branding those who decry their practices as "hateful" is "being quiet".

Heterosexuals and Christians who find homosexual practices abhorrent have been far too soft on the issue, or it would not have reached this point.

I fail to understand why the planned corruption of our youth, the ponderings of buggering little boys, and the premeditated destruction of the innocence of our children in order that a few might satiate their own lusts is viewed as anything but the hate filled and self serving abombination it is.

Whether we couch our objections in warm, fuzzy phrases, or use the language for a harsh impact to drive home the point is not the issue here. The issue is the safety, ultimately, of our children. My grandparents would not have "tolerated" raising their children in this environment, why should I?

What gave you the impression that I thought we should be quiet. Some were asking why this was a threat to those who oppose gay activists in forceful but moderate, non-hateful ways. I was trying to point out that while we may think we are being dispassionate and non-hateful, the agenda of the gay activists is to reach the point where society in general and legislators and courts in particular believe that even the dispassionate statement, "homosexual orientation is disordered" is hate speech. The gay activists will not rest until they have branded as hate speech even that simple statement.

I was not suggesting we be quiet. Shout it from the rooftops. I was responding to those who seemed to think that as long as we don't speak our moral principles in hateful ways, we have nothing to fear from hate crimes legislation. My point was that the gays are the ones who will be defining what constitutes "hateful" and to some of them, anything we say is hateful unless we agree with them that homosexual orientation is normal. That has to be opposed loudly and the Republican and conservative congressmen who voted for the Conyers amendment need to be given a spanking by their constituents.

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