Silencing Christians: Homosexual protection & Hate Crime Bill
WASHINGTON (BP and local reports) — Despite objections that it would infringe on the religious liberty of pastors and other faith leaders, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a defense bill October 8 that includes historic hate crimes protections for homosexuals.
The 2010 defense authorization bill, which passed 281-146, has little if anything to do with hate crimes but is being used as a vehicle to pass hate crimes legislation. The defense bill (H.R. 2647) now goes to the U.S. Senate, where a similar version already passed earlier this year.
Mississippi Representatives Travis Childers, Bennie Thompson, and Gene Taylor — all Democrats — voted yes on the bill. Republican Representative Gregg Harper voted no.
Lobbyists for homosexual organizations for years have supported expanding the hate crimes law but failed, either because Republicans controlled Congress or the White House, or both. With Democrats now in charge of both Congress and the White House, however, the prospects of passage appear good.
If the bill becomes law, it would be the biggest federal legislative victory for homosexual organizations to date.
U.S. President Barack Obama, cheered by homosexual rights groups because of his positive positions on a wide range of their agenda, supports hate crimes protections which, according to the text of the legislation, would give the U.S. Attorney General the authority to investigate crimes that are “motivated by prejudice” based on the “actual or perceived… sexual orientation [or] gender identity” of a person.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, sent a letter October 7 to House Minority Leader John Boehner, R.-Ohio, urging him to support efforts to strip hate crimes from the defense bill.
The defense bill that passed the House was the result of a House-Senate conference compromise. The conference committee nixed funding for the F-22 fighter plane — funding opposed by Obama that had initiated a veto threat if included — and left in funding for F-35 engines, also opposed by Obama.
It is unclear whether Obama would veto the defense bill in its current state.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R.-Ind., said on the floor that he “disdains” discrimination but that passage of the hate crimes legislation would chill religious freedoms.
Voting results for MS U.S. House of Representatives members on H.R. 2647 “Under Section 2 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code today,” Pence said, “an individual may be held criminally liable who aids, abets, counsels, commands, or induces or procures in the commission of a federal crime. Therefore, to put a fine point on it, any pastor, preacher, priest, rabbi, or imam who may give a sermon out of their moral traditions about sexual practices could presumably under this legislation be found to have aided, abetted, or induced in the commission of a federal crime.
“This will have a chilling effect on religious expression from the pulpits, in our temples, in our mosques, and in our churches.”
The bill criminalizes thought, Pence said. “Adding hate crimes provisions in this defense bill puts us on a slippery slope of deeming particular groups as more important than others under our system of justice,” he said.
Harper, apparently the lone Mississippi Congressman to issue a public statement through his web site, agreed. “This reckless language that would criminalize thought should be removed from a bill that is intended to benefit our men and women in uniform,” Harper said.
“It is unfortunate that the Democratic leadership would jeopardize our national security interests by combining two completely unrelated bills in order to promote their liberal social agenda,” Harper pointed out.
Boehner, speaking at a news conference, called the attachment of hate crimes to the defense bill an abuse of the legislative process.
“It’s an abuse of power by Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate] Majority Leader [Harry] Reid, and it’s offensive,” Boehner said. “It’s offensive to me and a lot of my members, and that’s why I will vote and urge my colleagues to vote no… The idea that we’re going to pass a law that’s going to add further charges to someone based on what they may have been thinking, I think is wrong.”
Pelosi, D.-Calif., was undeterred and in a celebratory mood at her press conference. “It’s a very exciting day for us here in the capital… When I came to Congress 22 years ago, hate crimes legislation was one of the items on my agenda.”
Land asserted in the letter to Boehner that hate crimes legislation would infringe on religious speech. “Since the bill specifies a hate crime ‘is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived’ ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity’ of a victim, prosecutors and judges would assume the precarious position of judging thoughts,” Land wrote. “This could create a chilling effect on religious speech, connecting innocent expression of religious belief to acts of violence against individuals afforded special protections.
“The criminalization of religious speech, such as speech against the practice of homosexuality, has already been seen in other countries with similar hate crimes legislation in place.”
Land also said hate crimes protections are unnecessary and unconstitutional and would afford special protections to some individuals but deny such protections to others.
“This would turn on its head the 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law,” Land wrote.
The hate crimes legislation was named in part for Matthew Shepard, the young homosexual who was beaten to death while tied to a fence in Wyoming in 1998. Although some have argued Shepard’s death was the result of a hate crime, the murderers told ABC News in a 2004 interview they instead were motivated by a desire for money to purchase methamphetamine.