Congress dropped legislation this week that would have expanded federal hate crimes protections to include homosexuals and transgendered individuals.
House and Senate negotiators decided to strip the provision from the 2008 Defense Authorization bill on Thursday after concluding that the bill lacked the necessary votes to pass in the House.
One House Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because conference negotiations are ongoing, said the bill was 40 votes short of passage, The Associated Press reported.
The measure sought to extend federal hate crimes laws – which currently protects individuals on the basis of race, religion and national origin – to individuals with “actual or perceived” sexual orientation or gender identity. If approved, the tacked-on amendment would have also authorized federal authorities to provide assistance to local authorities in hate crime investigations.
Supporters of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), argued that the measure was relevant to the defense authorization bill because it represented an effort to stop violence at the home front.
However, the bill’s opponents, which included conservative Democrats and Republicans, said the amendment was irrelevant to the defense legislation and unnecessary since laws already cover violent acts against individuals.
Republicans expected President Bush to veto the bill if it included the hate crimes measure. The White House administration had agreed the provision was unnecessary and unrelated to the defense bill.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said in a written statement Thursday that the bill "would have politicized the defense bill during a time of armed conflict” and be a disservice to troops.
Pro-family and Christians groups considered Thursday’s decision to drop the hate crimes language a victory for religious freedom and freedom of speech.
Some had referred to the provision as “thought crimes” legislation, saying it would criminalize thoughts or speech since the motivation of a person charged with hate crime would be evaluated. They also pointed to sticky situations where a pastor could be prosecuted for inciting a hate crime for preaching homosexuality as sin to his congregation.
"This is a big win for the cause of religious freedom and freedom of speech," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), who had urged constituents to ask members of Congress to oppose the bill if it included the hate crimes language.
"For this victory, we owe a great debt of gratitude to the courageous members of the House who refused to bow to the pressure of political correctness and stood up for the constitutional principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” added Land in a Baptist Press report.
The Christian Coalition of America, which had also called on supporters to ask Congress members to strike down the bill, was pleased with the removal of the hate crimes legislation, according to an e-mail sent by the group’s president, Robert Combs.
Andrea Lafferty, executive director of conservative group Traditional Values Coalition, claimed that although congressional Democrats knew the hate crimes measure lacked support for passage, they pushed ahead anyway to ease an attempt to revive the legislation next year.
“This is a short-term, but significant victory for traditional values,” said Lafferty in a statement. “The Democrats are desperate to appease their homosexual allies, so I expect the hate crimes issue to be back again next year after the Christmas recess.”
Lafferty also warned in a One News Now report that next year Democrats would continue their efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which seeks to add “sexual orientation” to a list of federally protected classes under a 1964 act that prohibits job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
The Senate had voted to include the hate crimes amendment in September. Earlier in May, the House had passed the Defense bill that did not include the provision by a 397-27 vote.
Comments
Christians who vote against this legislation not only don't understand what it is trying to do, they don't understand the Bible and the true meaning of "Love one's neighbor as yourself." Shame on you who claim to act for Jesus, yet could not be farther from the truth!
paine:
I suggest you pick up a history book, and not just look at the "pick and choosing" that you're doing. I'm not saying we had a perfect past, nor that men in both "DEMOCRATIC" and "REPUBLICAN" persuasions were perfect. I was making a point that we do have a Christian history as a nation. For you to deny it, is like denying that the holocost never existed.
jc4me wrote: "The overwhelming fact remains ifeelfine, the country was founded on Christian Principles, and nothing will ever erase that from historical facts."
That there are those who still believe this is absurd. I realize it's very popular Religious Reich propaganda still left over from the late 70s/early 80s, but it's categorically false to anyone who has actually studied history and politics. At best, the majority of the "Founding Fathers" were Deists. This is a far cry, philosophically, from Christian. They might as well have been Muslim for all the similarities Deists have with Christians. Isolated, pulled out of context quotes from letters and journals are not evidence of "Christian principles."
As far as Benjamin Rush: he believed in forced psychiatric treatment and that being black was a hereditary disease. He might be considered one of the first openly white supremacy theorists of the United States. He is also the father of the "disease model" for addiction—specifically for alcoholism—that gave rise to whole generations of "It's not my fault, it's the disease" excuses for addiction. And, finally, his religious views were more of a Universalist bent; meaning that he believed in the pluralism of religion even if he did have a personal preference for "a religion of the New Testament."
Great role model there ya picked as a counterbalance. If I were making suggestions here it would be that you actually stop picking fights with information that is outside your knowledge base and obviously gleaned from propaganda sources.
but DO NOT CHARGE A PREACHER FOR PREACHING THE BIBLE. The law needs to be perfected.
homosexuality is a sin, but it is not the worst sin ever. Be a little nicer to them.
Continued
Mcfbc:
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/clintbodycnt.html
The Associated Press:Vincent Foster: the death investigation that hasn't ended.
Jon Walker, an investigator for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), mysteriously "fell" to his death from Lincoln Towers, in Arlington, VA. In March 1992, Walker contacted the Kansas City RTC office for information concerning the ties between Whitewater and the Clintons. He reportedly was looking into a 50 million dollar transfer from an RTC fund in Chicago to Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to cover up a 47 million dollar embezzlement.
Johnny Franklin Laughton, Jr., and a friend hit a telephone pole at a high rate of speed, Mar. 29, 1998, after their car had become airborne and left the road. They had driven less than 1/4 of a mile at the time of the impact. In the spring of 1997, a tornado ripped through some junked cars at Johnny's transmission and opened up the trunk of a car that proved to have a box of Whitewater records in it, including a copy of a $27,000 cashiers check drawn on Madison and payable to Bill Clinton. Johnny Franklin Laughton, Jr. realized what he was looking at and turned the box of documents over to the FBI."
Mcfbc:
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/clintbodycnt.html
"......Whitewater
People have been beaten and perhaps even killed for trying to expose the background of Webster Hubbell and the dealings of the Rose Law Firm of which he was a partner. Other famous partners in the firm were Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Vincent Foster.
James McDougal was serving his 3 year sentence for bank fraud at the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center in Texas, a facility operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons for inmates who need medical attention. Just prior to another round of testimony before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, Jim McDougal suffered a heart attack while in solitary confinement and died March 8, 1998. When Jim McDougal was taken out of solitary, instead of attempting to defibrillate his heart with equipment on hand at the facility, he was driven over to John Peter Smith hospital. Not the closest hospital to the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center, John Peter Smith hospital is a welfare hospital, where (in the words of one local) ,"They let interns practice on deadbeats".
The single most damning fact to come out of the McDougal death was his injection with Lasix, a diuretic, to force his giving a urine sample for drug testing, even though McDougal was not a known drug case, and Lasix is contra-indicated in cases of heart disease. Lasix can cause excessive diuresis, blood volume reduction, circulatory collapse, and vascular thrombosis, or blood clots. If a matching potassium supplement is not administered at the same time, Lasix can kill.
Vince Foster, a former partner in the Rose Law firm and White House aide, had just been served a subpeona and was supposed to testify about Whitewater. Instead of testifying, he died on July 20, 1993. A suicide note was supposedly found a few days later, torn into several pieces, in his briefcase, after his office had been entered by white house staff and materials removed. (The "suicide" note has since been revealed to be a forgery.) The suicide conclusion does NOT square with the testimony from the man who found the body (the Confidential Witness) or much of the forensic evidence. For example, the gun which he supposedly used to kill himself was reported to be still in his hand, but the person who first found the body reports that there was no gun. A signed report of Medical Examiner, Dr. Donald Haut was uncovered at the National Archives, proving that Foster had a previously unreported gunshot wound to his neck. And, an FBI memo has surfaced dated the day after the date of the official autopsy, in which the autopsies informs the FBI that there was NO exit wound.
I'm sure Bill Clinton was relieved when the Supreme Court ruled that the attorney-client privilege of confidentiality protects against disclosure of the notes even after a client’s death. That was the plan, after all, wasn't it?
mcfbc:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/clintonfriends.htm
The People President Clinton Didn't Have to Pardon...Because They're All Dead-Truth! & Fiction!
The Truth: James McDougal died on Sunday, March 8, 1998 in John Petersmith Hospital in Ft. Worth, Texas. He had been serving a federal prison sentence for fraud in connection with the Whitewater land deal. At first, he claimed to be innocent, but after being convicted of 18 felony counts, he cooperated with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's investigation of the Clintons. He was scheduled to give damaging testimony against the Clintons, although critics of the investigation say his testimony had previously been inconsistent and that nothing new was expected to be revealed. A prison spokesman said McDougal died of a heart attack and had been suffering from heart disease and blocked arteries.
The Truth: Thirty-one year old Bill Shelton was police officer in Sherwood, Arkansas, and engaged to Kathy Ferguson. It was in his apartment that she was found dead. He was one of many of her friends who felt that Ferguson did not commit suicide and that the coroner's report was not accurate about her wound being self-inflicted. He was found a month later sprawled over her grave with a gunshot wound to his head that was similar to what the coroner had described as Ferguson's wound.
The Truth: Gandy Baugh jumped out of a window of a multi-story building and died on January 8, 1994. Published reports say he was defending a man named Dan Lassater in a financial misconduct case. Lassater was an associate of Bill Clinton's who was convicted of cocaine distribution.
The Truth: In his report to Attorney General Reno, Wilcher said that he was in grave danger and that if the information he had for the Attorney General fell into the wrong hands, there could be people "silenced in the very near future."
mcfbc:
It's funny that you should bring up the our first president George Washington owning slaves; but you forgot one very crucial point of information in your twisted post: George Washington had his nearly 300+ slaves freed when he died (had someone else do it of course, he was dead). READ UP ON YOUR HISTORY.
With regard to Bil Clinton, just cause he carried a Bible on Sunday's and went to a United Methodist Church while he was in the presidency did not make him a born again Bible believing Christian. Surprisingly, while he was governor as well as President, many "deaths without causes" happened to people who opposed him. Even one of the women he sexually harrassed and had sex with came on national TV after she admitted to the affair and said that she didn't have any problems with her car brakes, and she was not a crazy driver, and the such. Do you know why mcfbc? Because she wanted to let the world know on national TV that if for whatever reason she disappeared, or was found dead for a misterious reason, that people would have to consider vengeance from Clinton.
Another factual, historical example for you: Take for instance the insurance salesman who's wife worked for Clinton while he was in the Whitehouse. What about the scandal that surrounded and still surrounds Sandy Berger while he assisted the President on Intelligence issues. Why are crucial Intelligence Documents missing from the reports he requested to review? I find it odd that Liberals will blame republicans and conservatives as being conspirators in crimes, and ommissions of truth, etc, yet why doens't the liberal media capitalize on plastering Sandy Berger anymore? Because he worked for their poster boy Bill Clinton, that is why. Why don't you and the other liberal secular progressives on this site stop spewing half truths from your mouths, and start looking at history in context for a change?
I am amazed at the double standard of so many posting here. You condemn Bill Clinton, who claims to be a Christian, as not being one because of his affair. Yet when someone 200 hundred years ago says they are a Christian you automatically assume that they are speaking the truth. Yet you don't put the same standard of judgement on them that you like to put on today's leaders. What about the fact that many of our founding fathers owned slaves. Our very first president was a slave owner. Yet no one seems to question his faith or of others of that time period. You can sit here and throw out 100 quotes about the founding fathers faith. If you choose to judge today's leaders not by their quotes, but by their lives, then don't use a different standard on past leaders.
ifeelfine wrote:
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion….
U.S. Treaty with Tripoli, 1797
"At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Mohammedism or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all." - Justice John Paul Stevens.
. . . I could keep going."
Exactly ifeelfine what you are quoting here is some of the pluralism that made it's way into our government, but it was not always this way. If you closely read my previous post(s) i did mention that it is this very pluralism that has lead to the post moderninsm, moral relativism, humanism, social progressive liberalism, depravity and seperation of this nation from Godly Principles; but you simply cannot negate the fact that our nation was founded upon Christian Principles, and that the Puritans, the Quakers, and many Preachers of the Gospel were invited to speak at government events during the foundations. Go check out the prayer meetings that were in the first Senate hearings in Congress, and their clear invocations to the God of Heaven and Earth and Jesus Christ. Go check out Benjamin Rush and his contributions to Christianity. Right, you won't go research him, because it goes against any liberal misconceptions you have conjured up. The overwhelming fact remains ifeelfine, the country was founded on Christian Principles, and nothing will ever erase that from historical facts. By the way, it was not social progressive liberals who fought to liberate the widely accepted slave trade during those times, it was a Republican President named Abraham Lincoln my friend; do you need me to go on and on?
I suppose the founding fathers would have disagreed with you, but you are entitled to your post modernistic ways of thinking no matter how twisted or stretched they may be.
this nation is STILL founded UNDER GOD.
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion….
U.S. Treaty with Tripoli, 1797
"At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Mohammedism or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all." - Justice John Paul Stevens.
. . . I could keep going.
ifeelfine72:
"jc4me - I think you need to read up on the history of the United States and not just get it from Rush Limbaugh. How about you read a history text book. It angers me when people like you completely spin history - you take snippets here and there without putting it in context."
I did not get my quotes from Rush Limbaugh. What makes you think that? This clearly shows your head is in the gutter my friend. Again, liberals can't come up with factual historical statements, because they have had to rewrite history books to include the prince of timbuctu, but they don't tell you that the Puritans had a huge influence on our society, as well as the Quakers, and other Christian groups which were very well involved in the nations founding principles. You are the one spinning the historicity of the issue my liberal/post modern/revisionist friend. You should be the one reading up on the history of this nation; not from a revisionist perspective, but from a "whole context" perspective. It makes me laugh when all you liberals think we conservatives get all of our info from Rush Limbaugh, when there are many other conservative think tanks, as well as the library of congress, proof texts, historical records, written documents, and yet you love spinning the truth. All the quotes I have quoted for you were not from Rush Limbaugh, but from founders, foreigners (Alexis deTocqueville) who existed in true historical context (unlike your revisionist post modern mindset that is based on conspiracies in la la land), and likeminded men who actually formed universities, as well as likeminded Presidents (Woodrow Wilson in this instance; no not Clinton), Supreme Court Rulings, etc. Judging from the true historical facts my frined, it looks like the one making rash illogical statements is you, and you seem to be distorting the true historical context of it all, like you do the issue of sinfulness of homosexualityu which the Bible clearly says is sin liuke adultery and fornication. You seem to attack fundamentalism, but yet, you lack the credibility to back up your post modern view. You are the one who needs to do some historical searches about the founders, past presidents, and bring up some quotes to back up your illogical, post modern revisionist liberal statements ifeelfine.
jc4me - I think you need to read up on the history of the United States and not just get it from Rush Limbaugh. How about you read a history text book. It angers me when people like you completely spin history - you take snippets here and there without putting it in context.
What has fundamentalism ever done for the US? Nothing good that's for sure. It was liberal Christians who ended slavery not conservative Christians. Conservatives used the Bible to support slavery. It was progressive liberal Christians that helped women become voting members of society - not the conservative Christians. Conservative Christians used passages of the Bible to keep women as second class citizens. So if I sound like I don't care for fundamentalism, you're right. I think its almost as bad as atheism. Its such a perversion of God's love.