"The hate crimes plan is to be offered as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2009 Department of Defense reauthorization bill.
I should be used to this BS by now, but still steam when it happens. It can't stand on it's own, so it's tacked on the Defense bill. If successfully added as an amendment and the defense bill is passed - and it will be passed - the hate crimes become law.
Once again, I wonder about the constitutionality of a federal law - does this supposedly come under the much abused Interstate Commerce Clause?
“Once again, I wonder about the constitutionality of a federal law - does this supposedly come under the much abused Interstate Commerce Clause?”
Where have you been? The fed can do whatever it wants. Unless it does something that personally offends the Court.
By the way, hate crimes should be banned because they go after motive, which is not traditionally considered to be an element of crime. When people call them “thought crimes,” I cringe a little. After all, prosecutors have to crawl inside people’s minds to determine intent, which in turn determines what crime you’ll be charged with. Charging on the basis of motive, though, is not within the spirit of the law. It harkens back to class perogative. You know: kick a peasant, go about your business; soil a lord’s cape, be hung by the neck within the hour.