The Maryland Catholic Conference a few years ago pushed/supported hate crimes legislation against the killing of a homeless person. On this blog, I argued that the intentional killing of a homeless person is just as bad as the murder or a priest, nun or my own mother. There should be no special "hate crime" legislation. I also warned that this was a dangerous precedent to set. Once done, it could open the door for other "special groups."
I thought that this from Pipeline News, sums it up nicely:
The theatre of the absurd is illuminated when society adds to the mix the concept of motivation to determine what is a crime or is not. Not only is it necessary to then "guess" at why a person does something but if the punishment for an act which has been previously deemed criminal is "enhanced," then a situation is created where the untenable becomes the rule and anything becomes possible to criminalize and punish whether reasonable or not - which brings us to "hate crimes."
What is a hate crime? The answer is whatever law makers say it is. And what do law makers say is a hate crime - whatever a sufficiently strong pressure group wants it to be. There need not be any logic to it.
Last July in another of the Democrat's leader's tricky moves, the senate voted to expand the 1969 federal hate crimes law to include people attacked because of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability by attaching it to a "must pass" defense appropriation bill. Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "This bill simply recognizes that there is a difference between assaulting someone to steal his money, or doing so because he is gay, or disabled, or Latino or Muslim."
This is the first time in American history that thought alone is being criminalized. Until now the government has adhered to the admonition by Thomas Jefferson who said the reach of legislation should extend only to actions and not to opinions but now the law will punish people not just for what they did but what they were thinking when they did it.
Consider the effect this will have on the practice of religion and freedom of speech. Anyone speaking from a pulpit who preaches the biblical view of homosexuality may be subject to criminal prosecution.
Not only does the new law make thought a factor in criminality, it also extends the power of the federal government over the states. Despite many states also having enacted hate crimes legislation, it would provide federal grants to help with the prosecuting of hate crimes and funds programs to combat hate crimes.
The federal government can step in after the Justice Department certifies that a state is unwilling or unable to follow through on a purported hate crime.
It in not likely that this law will be able to be repealed in the future so it will remain the law of the land and another triumph of a special interest group, in this case the homosexual community.
For the full story, click here.
Nice job Maryland Catholic Conference, nice job. You must be really proud of yourselves now.
PS: For those of you will bring up Matthew Sheppard, please make certain to include the fact that he was a meth addict, that one of the three men who killed him was bi-sexual and that all of them killed him (and admitted so) not because he was gay, but because he was an easy target and they wanted his money. Seems these facts get swept under the rug.
5 comments:
Yes because him being a meth addict takes away from the severity of the crime because it makes him less of a person, right "Catholic"? Also, to clarify, is this priest shooting gays as he preaches against homosexuality because that's the only possible way he could be prosecuted for it.
On the contrary, the murder is a horrible thing. However, the reason for the murder is not due to the sexual orientation but that it was by a couple of drug addicts all looking to grab some money from an easy mark.
Second, we have seen in Canada and other countries, that Catholics and others who state that homosexuality is immoral and wrong have been brought up on "hate" charges.
The other thing that I worry about is if someone preaches that homosexuality is wrong, and immoral, and some mentally imbalanced person gets it in their head to go out and kill gays, then what? Will the preacher be brought up on charges for inciting this?
Thank you for reading the blog and hope to see you back here again.
The Maryland Catholic Conference a few years ago pushed/supported hate crimes legislation
I know. I strongly supported the Church on this.
I also warned that this was a dangerous precedent to set.
Except this is not a new precedent. We have had these laws since the 1960s.
The theatre of the absurd is illuminated when society adds to the mix the concept of motivation to determine what is a crime or is not.
The law only pertains to acts that are already criminal. It criminalizes nothing new. No "thought alone" is criminalized. Sitting and thinking is as legal now as it was before Obama signed this law.
It is not new to include motivation as a factor in an already illegal act. For example, pre-meditated and meditated murder. This is a long standing part of the American and British legal system.
Regardless of whether you want to consider the Matthew Shepard case a "hate crime" or not -- it should be recognized that people target gay men and women just as people have target blacks and other minorities. A hate crime is a hate crime -- stop trying to water it down by saying that people will start trying to legislate religious beliefs. Legislation against hate is good -- it's how we ended slavery. And isn't that a good thing?
Yesterday some conservative Protestants (Catholic and Jews have enough sense to know they were being silly) tried to "test" this new law. They did the very things the critics of this law said would lead to arrest and in the presence of police.
Guess what? Nothing happened.
Another right wing claim bites the dust.
Post a Comment