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Posted on 05/02/2009 4:42:40 PM PDT by Maelstorm
The House Judiciary Committee will on Wednesday consider a proposed federal “hate crimes” bill, H.R. 1913. It would, for the first time, allow the federal government to step in and prosecute any violent crime anywhere in the country that “is motivated by prejudice” against a number of protected characteristics, including “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (that is, cross-dressing and sex changes).
All violent crimes should be vigorously prosecuted - but this novel legal approach violates several core principles and holds a number of dangers.
1) It violates the “equal protection of the laws” by protecting some victims more than others. This is a principle which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and is even carved above the entrance to the Supreme Court (“Equal Justice Under Law”). Do we somehow care less about a victim who is violently assaulted because of a robbery or personal dispute than we do about a victim who is assaulted because they belong in a federally protected category?
2) It punishes thoughts and not just actions. Advocates of the bill deny this because it only authorizes prosecution of someone who “willfully causes bodily injury” or “attempts to cause bodily injury.” But such acts are already crimes under state law. What converts the acts targeted by this bill into a federal offense are the thoughts or opinions of the perpetrator alone. Since every violent crime manifests some sort of “hate,” it makes more sense to think of this as a “thought crimes” law.
3) It constitutes a major federal power grab from states and localities. A version of this bill in an earlier Congress was dubbed the “Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act.” It might better be known as the “Local Law Enforcement Usurpation Act.” In fact, it would even allow prosecution of an individual who had already been prosecuted and acquitted for the same act at the state level-which violates the constitutional protection against double jeopardy.
4) It shows contempt for the moral and religious views of millions of Americans by including “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected categories. By distinguishing between an ordinary crime and a so-called “hate crime” solely on the basis of the perpetrator’s disapproval of homosexual conduct or sex changes, the bill sends a message that such disapproval alone-even if expressed peacefully and lovingly-constitutes a form of “hate” that is equivalent to racial bigotry. This is an insult to many compassionate individuals who sincerely object to such conduct, not only based on religious and moral boundaries that are thousands of years old, but also based on well-founded concerns about the serious health risks of such conduct.
5) It sets us on a slippery slope toward serious infringements of the freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In some jurisdictions that have adopted these laws, “hate crimes” have been defined to include not just violent physical acts, but merely verbal activity as well, using terms like “hate speech,” “intimidation,” and even verbal “assault.” By ratifying the “thought crimes” mentality, this bill paves the way for future expansions of its scope. Indeed, Christians have already been prosecuted under thought crime laws for peacefully expressing disapproval of homosexual behavior in Sweden, England, Canada, and even in Philadelphia. Even under current federal law, the 1990 “Hate Crime Statistics Act” defines “hate crimes” much more broadly as “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice,” and the statistics collected under that law include even non-violent offenses such as “intimidation.” It would be a very simple matter for a future Congress to change the definition of a “hate crime” subject to federal prosecution to match the more sweeping definition of “hate crimes” on which the federal government already gathers statistics.
There is simply no evidence that state and local law enforcement officials are unable or unwilling to adequately investigate and prosecute violent “hate crimes” under existing criminal laws, or that they are failing to do so. Because of that, a federal “hate crimes” law is unnecessary, and for the reasons noted above, it is unacceptable. To treat all victims equally, and to punish actions and not thoughts, Congress should reject H.R. 1913.
You may think I'm just a heartless conservative but I have a unique context. I went to school with a guy named Arthur "J.R" Warren. I always thought he was a skinny funny guy and the last thing I remember about him from school was him singing at a school talent contest. I remember feeling really bad for him when some of in the crowd began booing but not because he was known as "gay" but simply because some of the younger crowd were real jerks, at a previous non related event those presenting had refused to continue after facing torture under the freshman class. That said I was never was a close friend with him, never had classes with him, but his case and his later death should offer pause to anyone who rushes to support such misguided hate crimes legislation that tilts justice one way or another based upon group identification.
Some times these things are not so clear. "JR" was killed horribly and his killer is now in jailed but his killer was someone who had a long sexual relationship with him. It was claimed since he was 10 years old. Anyone who wants can read this themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Warren
It is a horrible example but the line between victim and criminal is almost never best defined by color of skin, sexual orientation, ethnic or religious affiliation. It is exactly because these things are so personal that offering an judicial imbalance favoring one over the other should be avoided. If anything we should be focused on helping to make the law more blind so it can be more fair. Some studies show that people are more likely to be convicted or receive harsher sentences because of their physical appearance and demeanor than the hard evidence in a case. The last thing we need is justice to be tilted even further away from the evidence and towards emotional ends.
This is almost as bad as red light cameras.
Amendment 14-Civil rights-July 9, 1868
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
They are going to try to use this to stop any criticism of Obama by the right, as they will consider any criticism of Obama to be racist and/or threatening, and thus a hate crime and/or a threat to his safety.
A judge and jury have the right to consider the motivation of a crime when deciding a sentence. We don’t need to write special laws for what motivates a crime.
The birth of Political Prisoners in the United States of America.
I thank the Lord for my guns every day. In fact, I feel the need to expand my collection so I can thank the Lord for the bounty I will receive after the 10 day waiting period.
Our Founding Fathers were very wise men. I appreciate their wisdom a little more every day.
NO longer free speech!
Orifice Farm
Have any "hate crime" cases been brought up to the Supreme Court yet? If not, how long would it take to get this up there and do you think it would be struck down?
H.R. 1913
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
-snip-
(6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:
-snip-
I thought the following editorial by Andre Seu was pretty appropriate. Looks like we’re a little ahead of schedule....
Apologies to Winston Smith
Stories of suppression in England should cause a shiver | Andrée Seu World Magazine
Caroline Petrie, a Christian community nurse from Somerset, England, who carries out home visits, has been reinstated, which is a point for our side. She had offered to pray for a patient and was suspended without pay by the North Somerset National Health Service Trust for failing to show “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity.”
David Brooker of Southampton, England, a Christian worker for a housing services group, received on March 30 a formal notice of suspension for “gross misconduct” against the organization’s Culture and Diversity Code of Conduct. The citation alleges that “whilst on shift with a female colleague, you seriously breached ECHG’s Code of conduct by promoting your religious views which contained discriminatory comments regarding a person’s sexual orientation.”
If the reader has just read the aforementioned quotations and not felt a shiver, then I owe an apology to Winston Smith of George Orwell’s novel 1984, who died in vain (but I thought 1984 was just a stupid summer reading requirement for getting into ninth grade) and to Soeur St. Edward de la Croix, who sat at a big oak desk in our third-grade class one day and made our eyes bug out with stories about what would happen if Khrushchev had his way.
David Booker has explained that he was merely having a conversation with a female colleague, who asked him about his beliefs. The woman inquired into the church’s teaching on same-sex marriage and homosexuality. The following day Booker was summoned regarding “events that happened last night.” He claims in his defense that he has homosexual friends and is not homophobic.
Booker’s employer of four years, the English Churches Housing Group (which is funded largely through churches in Hampshire), is a Christian charity for homeless people. Its patron is the archbishop of Canterbury. If you are not confused by the suspension of a Christian worker at a Christian organization for citing a Christian position, I respectfully—and apologetically—refer you to a comment by Syme, one of the writers of the totalitarian society dictionary of Oceania in 1984:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” ..... read more at World Magazine http://www.worldmag.com/articles/15307
“(6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following: “
I suppose if you work at it hard enough you can make the interstate commerce clause work for anything.
Getting back to the real meaning of the IC would make more difference in our society than probably any other.
What if this law was in effect during the Miss USA contest, when that asswipe Judge Perez Hilton went on a hatefest tirade against Miss California, calling her a c*nt and other four letter words, just because she had the courage and moral fibre to state her own opinion on gay marriage.
Now, who would be cited here for “violations” of this proposed awful law? Hilton? or Perjean?
Click the picture to see "A lawsuit has been served against our Canadian "sister" site, Free Dominion."
A new type of dangerous, pushy minority has now evolved: GAY SUPREMACISTS!
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