Lawmakers expand Hate Crimes law to protect gays

AP ^ | 05/01/03 | ap

[follow the money]

WASHINGTON (AP) -Comparing hate crimes to terrorist acts, senators called today for laws that would expand federal penalties for acts of violence against homosexuals.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would include protections based on sexual orientation, disability and gender to existing laws that target violence because of race and religion.

[Paul Atreides]

Comparing hate crimes to terrorist acts, senators called today for laws that would expand federal penalties for acts of violence against homosexuals.

Is this the same as the simple act of disapproving of homosexuality being compared to being a Nazi?

[follow the money]

Hate-crimes bill enjoys bipartisan support

A bill that would add sexual orientation to the list of characteristics protected by federal hate-crimes laws--and which has languished in Congress in one form or another for many years--was reintroduced Thursday in the U.S. Senate.

The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act has received bipartisan support as well as the backing of law enforcement officials. Introduced by senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.),

the bill would extend federal hate-crimes protections to the characteristics of real or perceived sexual orientation, gender, and disability, thus allowing the federal government greater leverage in providing assistance for the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes. "Hate crimes are meant to instill fear and create an atmosphere of intimidation against entire communities," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign. "This legislation will help to curtail the scourge of hate violence that is all too frequently directed at gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans."

The measure currently has 49 original cosponsors and is endorsed by more than 175 law enforcement, civil rights, civic, and religious organizations. The measure has already passed the Senate in earlier forms on two different occasions--most recently in June 2000, as an amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill, by a Senate vote of 57-42, with 13 Republicans in support. In September 2000 the House also passed a motion supporting the measure by a vote of 232-192, with 41 Republicans in support. The legislation also passed the Senate in July 1999, as an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill. Each time, the amendment was stripped out in conference committee.

Since the FBI began collecting hate-crimes statistics in 1991, more than 11,000 hate crimes based on sexual orientation have been reported. Since 1991, reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation have more than tripled, increasing 7.2% from 2000 to 2001, for a total of 1,393 incidents that year. Comparatively, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a nonprofit organization that tracks bias incidents against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, reported 1,943 incidents for 2001. The discrepancy in numbers is partially attributed to underreporting of hate crimes to the FBI, something that is is often motivated by fear of further discrimination and victimization.

[PhiKapMom]

This is CRAP and I hope the House does its job and kills this bill!

If only Specter would lose in the primary!

[follow the money]

This is all about the U.N geting its way Human Rights Campaign.

[follow the money]

Introduced by senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.),

[follow the money]

LAW OF THE LAND
Bible verses regarded
as hate literature
Court rules Scripture exposed homosexuals to ridicule

Posted: February 18, 2003




Certain passages of the Bible can be construed as hate literature if placed in a particular context, according to a Canadian provincial court.

The Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatchewan upheld a 2001 ruling by the province's human rights tribunal that fined a man for submitting a newspaper ad that included citations of four Bible verses that address homosexuality.


Ad placed by Christian corrections officer in Saskatoon, Canada, newspaper

A columnist noted in the Edmonton Journal last week that the Dec. 11 ruling generated virtually no news stories and "not a single editorial."

Imagine "the hand-wringing if ever a federal court labeled the Quran hate literature and forced a devout Muslim to pay a fine for printing some of his book's more astringent passages in an ad in a daily newspaper," wrote Lorne Gunter in the Edmonton, Alberta, daily.

Under Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of Regina, Saskatchewan, was found guilty along with the newspaper, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, of inciting hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500 Canadian dollars to each of the three homosexual men who filed the complaint.

The rights code allows for expression of honestly held beliefs, but the commission ruled that the code can place "reasonable restriction" on Owen's religious expression, because the ad exposed the complainants "to hatred, ridicule, and their dignity was affronted on the basis of their sexual orientation."

The ad's theme was that the Bible says no to homosexual behavior. It listed the references to four Bible passages, Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 on the left side. An equal sign was placed between the verse references and a drawing of two males holding hands overlaid with the universal nullification symbol – a red circle with a diagonal bar.

Owens, an evangelical Christian and corrections officer, said his ad was "a Christian response" to Homosexual Pride Week.

"I put the biblical references, but not the actual verses, so the ad would become interactive," he told the National Catholic Register after the 2001 ruling. "I figured somebody would have to look them up in the Bible first, or if they didn't have a Bible, they'd have to find one."

Leviticus 20:13, says, according to the New International Version, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

"Owens denies that, as a Christian, he wants homosexuals put to death, as some inferred from the biblical passages," the Catholic paper said. He believes, however, that "eternal salvation is at stake," both for those engaging in homosexual acts and for himself, if he fails to inform them about "what God says about their behavior."

Exposure to hatred

Justice J. Barclay wrote in his opinion that the human-rights panel "was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule."

"When the use of the circle and slash is combined with the passages of the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation, vilification and disgrace," Barclay said. "In other words, the biblical passage which suggests that if a man lies with a man they must be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred."

In the 2001 ruling, Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry commissioner Valerie Watson emphasized that the panel was not banning parts of the Bible. She wrote that the offense was the combination of the symbol and the biblical references. Owens, in fact, published an ad in 2001, without complaint, that quoted the full text of the passages he cited in the offending 1997 ad.

But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sides with Christian groups that criticize the panel for stifling free speech. Opponents of the ruling say it illustrates the dangers of a bill currently in Parliament, C-250, that would add "sexual orientation" as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate crimes legislation.

That legislation would make criminals of people like Owens and others who have been charged under provincial human rights panels, they argue.

Two years ago, the Ontario Human Rights Commission penalized printer Scott Brockie $5,000 for refusing to print letterhead for a homosexual advocacy group. Brockie argued that his Christian beliefs compelled him to reject the group's request.

In 1998, an Ontario man was convicted of hate crimes for an incident in which he distributed pamphlets about Islam outside a high school. In one of the pamphlets, defendant Mark Harding listed atrocities committed in the name of Islam in foreign lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.

Janet Epp Buckingham, legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, says cases like this are worrisome precedents that an expanded hate law could build upon, reported the Hamilton, Ontario, Spectator newspaper.

"Mark Harding really went overboard," Epp Buckingham said. "He said some quite nasty things about Muslims – that they are really violent overseas and that Muslims in Canada are the same and people need to be careful of them.

"But the court almost ignored the religious exemption," she said. "Harding himself said he wasn't trying to incite violence against Muslims. But the court said he did promote violence and hatred against Muslims and therefore the exemption doesn't apply, that it was not a good faith expression of religion."

She said that, at the very least, Bill C-250 could place a significant chill over the Christian community and, at worst, it could cause undue restrictions on religious expression.

[SuperVillain]

well it's about time... a shame Tipsy Ted had to get his grubby little fingers in it though.

[joesnuffy]

``We need to add the category of sexual orientation because it is so critical that we say to our gay brothers and lesbian sisters that we care about you, we include you, we want to defend you,'' said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. ``And we want to say that there is no family value to be served in opposing hate crime legislation.''

Sodomites declared sacred.....thats a good one....more valuable than our non sodomite population...LOL what a bunch of homofacism

[Norse]

What about hate crimes legislation to protect anglo saxon straight whites

[follow the money]

Kolbe to introduce bill allowing guest workers
By C.J. Karamargin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Legislation allowing Mexicans to enter the United States to work will soon be introduced by U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe.

The 10-term Arizona Republican told more than 400 Tucson business leaders Monday that a guest worker program could enhance security along Arizona's border with Mexico.

"We've got to find a way to regulate the flow of immigrants," Kolbe said in his annual State of the District address before the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

"I believe that the only way to do that that can work in a permanent way is to have guest worker legislation that legalizes and regularizes the flow of those people across the border."

The proposal won immediate support from Jack Camper, president of the chamber. He called it "an outstanding idea."

"The deaths in the desert have to stop somehow," Camper said.

Mexico's consul in Tucson, Carlos Flores Vizcarra, also praised the idea but said it is far from new.

"What Congressman Kolbe said today is what the Mexican government has been trying to push forward in the past two years under President (Vicente) Fox," he said.

Kolbe said the problems along the border will continue "as long as this migration of undocumented persons keeps coming across the border."

In many ways, he said, strengthening border security is more complex than the U.S. military's swift thrust into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.

"We wonder how can we so quickly and easily assert our control and superiority halfway around the globe in Iraq, and we can't as easily secure our own border," Kolbe said. "The answer, of course, is that one is a military problem that lends itself to a military solution."

Solving problems along the border, where national and economic security are intertwined with politics, "requires a different approach," Kolbe said. "We will be introducing that legislation very soon, and I hope that we will begin a national debate on the topic."

[follow the money]

U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe is gay

[Jhoffa_]

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. ``And we want to say that there is no family value to be served in opposing hate crime legislation.''

Sure there is, it's the most personal kind of "family value" and if you weren't so dense, you would realize this immediately.

Like other, supposed "hate crime" laws, they are saying that certain people aren't worthy of equal protection and equal justice. (which is in direct violation of the 14th amendment)

It's saying, Senator, that if your mother is robbed & beaten for her social security check that she isn't worthy of equal justice if she wasn't a lesbian, or black, or whatever the protected minority might be.

It's saying that her injuries aren't worth as much as the same injuries incurred on a lesbian.

These stupid laws have "family values" written all over them you idiot, you're just too blind and too stupid to see it.

[thegreatbeast]

This is the Specter that we all have come to know.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

[The legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would include protections based on sexual orientation, disability and gender to existing laws that target violence because of race and religion. ]

When are we going to see new laws that protect white Christian males from attack by Godless Marxists?

[Kevin Curry]

U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe is gay

Kolbe is just a man. His private sexual perversions do not define him, and they should stay private.

[Zebra]

``We need to add the category of sexual orientation because it is so critical that we say to our gay brothers and lesbian sisters that we care about you, we include you, we want to defend you,'' said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. ``And we want to say that there is no family value to be served in opposing hate crime legislation.''

I don't know anything about Senator Gordon Smith, but if I was from Oregon, I'd be embarrassed by this idiot. Hate crimes are unconstitutional, pure and simple. Anyone who beats up a gay person should be subjected to whatever the punishment is for beating up a straight person. In each case, the beater was a hater. To promote one over the other--or to protect one more than the other--is antithetical to our long-standing notions of equality under the law and blind justice.

To add as a preamble to a proposal to pass an unconstitutional piece of legislation the statement uttered by Smith is outrageous. I'd be interested in hearing from any Oregonians who can shed some light on this beauty.

[Jhoffa_]

Good reality check on this dimwit Gordon Smith -- how is he a Senator?

You got me.. I sometimes wonder why there aren't tumbleweeds blowing through the Senate, some of the outlandish crap I hear coming from there.

But, they manage to keep their seats for decades. Go figure.

[CARepubGal]

Teddy is making life easier for little Patches