So you you still get the death penalty, but first you get CHEECH!!!
Posted on 06/16/2004 4:39:52 PM PDT by Arioch7
Senate votes 65-33 FOR Homosexual hate-crime protection.
There was not a whole lot more to the story but it was on todays front page and continued in B-5. I tossed the paper in the dumpster after work but I noticed no one here seemed to know about it.
I have been looking for sources but have not located any.
I assure you that I read this and it is not yet ratified but the HOUSE has indicated that they would go along.
I apoligize for a lack of any source material but you have to pay to get into the WSJ's archives and I did not save the paper. SOMEONE had to have seen what I am talking about!
It was a snippet on the front page summaries talking about the Presidents budget on the front page.
Well, I think it is a big deal anyway!
Pretty soon, government will be making it so that no ethnic/sexual orientation group will be interacting with each other because of the fear that the other party will fake something and go "HATE CRIME, HATE CRIME!"
I know plenty of male friends now who do NOT talk to females at their workplaces for fear of being slapped with sexual harassment charges.
Next step - Thought Crime. I think somebody wrote about that once.
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES June 15, 2004 7:27 p.m.
WASHINGTON (AP)--The Senate voted 65-33 Tuesday to give gays and lesbians protection under the federal hate crime law, and officials said a debate was likely next month on a far more controversial measure to amend the Constitution with a ban on homosexual marriages.
Taken together, the developments signaled the full Senate is moving onto politically charged terrain less than five months before the fall elections, and came on a day that President George W. Bush renewed his opposition to gay marriages.
"Before you get to marriage, you've got to get over hate, and today the Senate did," said Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, the leading Republican advocate of hate crimes legislation that has cleared the Senate three times in recent years but has yet to pass the House.
"When someone is being stoned in the public square, we should all come to their rescue, and that includes the federal government," he added.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the leading Democratic supporter of the bill, said hate crimes amount to "domestic terrorism plain and simple, and it's unacceptable." He urged the administration to swing behind the proposal.
Current law permits the federal government to assist local and state authorities prosecuting limited types of crimes committed on the basis of the victim's race, religion or ethnic background. The legislation approved in the Senate would broaden it on two counts, allowing federal involvement in many more types of crimes, and adding sexual orientation, gender and disability to the list of covered categories.
The provision was attached to a $422 billion defense bill that is making its way toward passage.
While previous efforts to approve stand-alone hate crimes bills have failed, Smith and Kennedy prevailed in two earlier attempts to attach the proposal to other legislation.
Both times, though, in 1999 and 2001, the hate crimes provisions were jettisoned during final House-Senate negotiations, in part at the insistence of House conservatives. Smith indicated he wouldn't be surprised if that happened again. "I've not been told it will be stripped out," he said. "There's no guarantee it won't be, and there's a real possibility it will be."
Forty-seven Democrats were joined by 18 Republicans in voting for the proposal. All 33 votes in opposition came from Republicans.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan declined to say what Bush's position is.
"The president believes anyone who commits a violent act should receive swift and sure punishment, and that all violent crime is hate crime," she said. "The president believes all individuals should be treated fairly and equally under the law."
While hate crimes legislation has been a perennial issue in Congress in recent years, the drive to amend the constitution to ban gay marriages is a relatively new effort.
The Human Rights Campaign, an organization that supports gay rights, issued a statement during the day saying it had learned the measure would be brought to the Senate floor for a debate in the second week of July. Several GOP officials who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that timetable was likely.
Bush urged Congress earlier this year to approve an amendment, and Republican officials said the White House had recently been lobbying for a vote on it.
"The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith," Bush told the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Indianapolis. "And government, by strengthening and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all," said the president, who spoke to the group by satellite.
Some Republican strategists contend the issue could present a difficult political choice to Democrats, who could be pulled in one direction by polls showing that a majority of voters oppose gay marriage, and pulled in the other by homosexuals voters and social liberals who support it.
At the same time, GOP strategists say Republicans must avoid appearing intolerant on the issue, for fear of offending moderate Republican and independent voters.
While the hate crimes provisions cleared the Senate with ease, Republicans and Democrats alike say the proposed constitutional amendment appears to be well short of the two-thirds majority it will need to prevail. In part, that reflects strong opposition among Democrats as well as a lack of unity among Republicans. Some GOP senators favor a measure that also bans civil unions, while others want a decision to be left to the states.
Smith, a second-term lawmaker, is one of the Republicans that GOP leaders will have to win over if they are to approach the two-thirds majority they need. He favors an amendment that is silent on the issue of civil unions, but sidestepped the issue when asked how he would vote on a proposal that bans them. "I would want to see the language before I sign off," he said.
I hate the Senate!
You can also help at TVC's Cap Wiz
P.S. This is the 1st time I've ever tried to make a link, please let me know if it doesn't work!
I am trying to get documentation about the actual Senate session but I can't seem to get it. My sister thought I was talking about the MASS Senate but I showed her the journal and we were both a bit stunned. This is the first I have even heard of it.
This does not bode well, and although I have dropped most of my financial support for the GOP, I was wrestling with the idea of sending the House GOP some money. Let's just say I am glad that I did not.
For the record, my opinion is that if you break someones leg, you break their leg. All penalties should be the same. There is usually room for mitigating circumstances during the sentancing, so real-life circumstances can be processed during the final sentance.
Perhaps I am naive but my creed is that all are EQUAL under the law. What a quaint notion, eh? LOL!
So you you still get the death penalty, but first you get CHEECH!!!
Thank you for posting this.
I need a few seconds to recover from reading this.
"Hate Crimes" is one of those- it sounds like an idea any decent person would support, but its real purpose is to squelch and silence opposition.
If you ask an average person on the street if they approve of "Hate Crimes", of course they will say no. Who in their right mind would?
The legislation is bogus. I once asked a pro-hate crime person if they thought that if people attacked me and beat me for being a Conservative, is that a hate crime? She said yes. I told her that it was a crime like any other crime and if hurting someone under the law carried too little punishment, then the law should be changed to protect EVERYONE.
I proceeded to tell her that the Hate Crimes BS applies to everyone EXCEPT the young white straight male. In other words, attacks against the elderly, female, non-white, and gay were being made more punative then attacks against young white males.
I am a peaceful guy, I try to help others. Why am I considered a more permissable target by these people? By these people, I mean our esteemed politicians.
Attacks against ANYONE carry the same gravity.
ARRRGGHH!!! I can't even continue my main point as I am getting to angry at my government to type now. Thanks GOP! This is what the "Right-Wing" does when it is power? Think about why I put Right-Wing in quotation marks.
Cool.
I can't lay hands on it right now, but somewhere I have a letter to the Washington Times by a Canadian woman ( circa 1998 ) explaining how onerous the existing hate crimes laws were up there. I'll try to find it tomorrow.
"Social justice," "bilingual education" and "multiculturalism" are other "poisonous ideas."
You are welcome for me posting the article. You could return the favor if you looked up the roll call on this vote in the Senate and tell us who are the Republicans who voted for this. The knowledge will just cam emy bile going but it would be nice ot know who our enemies are. I am really wondering if Orin Hatch voted for this Hate Crimes bill.
The Candian Hate Crimes law was supposed to exempt religious speech but churches have already been challenged in Toronto (I think.) for preaching against homosexuality.
When we have Right-Wingers down here saying it wont happen, and if it does it will be a long day away; it becomes hard to realize that the reality IS here.
The courts are deciding issues about Guns, Fast Food, and sexuality at rates that were a JOKE six years ago. If my friends around here don't see what is going on here and up North then they are daft.
My mind is blown just due to the fact that they don't get it!
Bump for FR!
You're friggin' cool.
...Vote to repeal the 17th amendment...
I will ping "all" when I respond to this thread, and I will have all of the votes.
I will post details 24 hours from now. I hope that the main forum will take it seriously. I never heard of this "provision" in the Defense Bill.
Man, my last sentance alone points to how corrupt the appropriations committees are!
Arioch7 out!
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