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To: Pinkbell
What I don't like is that the Penna. legislature can simply pass a new "hate crimes" law with that intent and have it be "constitutional."

I would hope that such laws would be ruled unconstitutional simply because they violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal abuse (for lack of a better word) under the law.

I.e., as long as only straight whitey Christians (males) are persecuted under the law even when other people in other groups could also be persecuted, the law is unconstitutional.

2 posted on 07/26/2008 7:48:41 AM PDT by pnh102 (Save America - Ban Ethanol Now!)
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To: pnh102; Pinkbell
the court struck down the law because the provision violated Article III of the state Constitution, which prohibits a bill's alteration during its passage through the legislature, if the bill's original purpose is changed.
What I don't like is that the Penna. legislature can simply pass a new "hate crimes" law with that intent and have it be "constitutional."

Not necessarily.
Think about it. It was "tacked on" to an agricultural bill.Why?

This "game" was discivered long ago by manipulators and crooks, always to dishonest and destructive ends. It should have been slapped down the first time it was tried, but either it was not discovered or not challenged. First a trickle, then a torrent of such new "laws" have been with us ever since.

The point is that such subterfuge (tacking on horrible laws onto other totally unrelated laws) is usually done because the proposed law had little or no chance of passing otherwise. If the main law is important enough, needed enough or emergency legislation, "we'll deal with the other later" is assumed to never happen.

Voters and rational citizens (myself among them) reasonble conclude that if the law was "snuck in" the first time, the odds are that the proponents knew that the majority would oppose it. Rest assured that any revival of it in the full light of day will get the attention that it deserves, and fail.

This "some are more equal than others" legislation, must cease. Most state constitutions forbid it as a basic principle.
We are either equal or we're not. And dead is dead, regardless of other victim pathologies involved.

16 posted on 07/26/2008 8:24:55 AM PDT by Publius6961 (You're Government, it's not your money, and you never have to show a profit.)
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To: pnh102
I.e., as long as only straight whitey Christians (males) are persecuted under the law even when other people in other groups could also be persecuted, the law is unconstitutional.

I think you have it exactly backwards. It is unconstitutional at the other end. It creates a class of "aristocratic" victims, whose health and life is worth more than a normal citizen. That is, on principle, expressly forbidden by the national Constitution, and virtually all states'.

19 posted on 07/26/2008 8:30:13 AM PDT by Publius6961 (You're Government, it's not your money, and you never have to show a profit.)
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