Obama to Sign Hate Crimes Bill Wednesday

Whew ! Thank God he addressed Hate Crimes, this country was desperately waiting for that piece of legislation…Well done BO

How about outlawing the ‘f’ word out of films. I saw a movie this weekend with the ‘f’ word in it and I was completely shocked that this word had been allowed in the movie. This country is a discriminatory mess. We are not living a post-racial area with kunckleheads like Limabugh still on the air getting to yap off at the mouth and we are not living in any pro-gay area with the marriage ban. Blacks and gays are not respected in the USA, particularly Blacks

Does anybody think this will prevent crime ? No , it is just throwing a bone to special interests so each prosecution can be an event . Even in Wyoming it was already against the law to torture and kill a human being . This is actually a undeserved mercy to killers . They might be able to do Federal Time instead of Wyoming time .

“Does anybody think this will prevent crime ? ”
It seems right wingers are upset that they no longer will be able to assault the LGBT for being LGBT.

OBAMA OPPPOSES GAY MARRIAGE !!!
He denies Gays the basic civil right of Marriage…

“Tell me what sense it makes to attach a hate crimes bill to a defense bill? What kind of Democratic agenda trick is this?”
BDawg | Oct 26, 2009 9:17:51 PM
Aww, it’s so cute when someone final pays attention to the government for the first time in their life and thinks they’re seeing something new in a century old practice.

Obama responds to a 2008 Human rights questionare: “I do NOT support Gay Marriage, I believe marrige is between a MAN AND A WOMAN”
He is clearly opposed to GAY MARRIAGE and therefore, regards the civil rights of Gays to be worthy of his disregard….

while certain crimes strike us–rightly–as more heinous than others, i’ve always mused at the idea of a “hate crimes” bill. i mean, gee, if you murder anyone for any reason it seems pretty hateful to me. so, what is the point of passing a bill that delineates “hate” crimes from other crimes? will sentences be stricter, i wonder? really, someone please enlighten me…

“Tell me what sense it makes to attach a hate crimes bill to a defense bill? What kind of Democratic agenda trick is this? Nothing like slipping your agenda under the cover of something noble and honorable like defense of our homeland. Barack and his Democrats should be ashamed to even wear the title of American!” BDawg
This makes sense because many of the soldiers that are defending our COUNTRY are gay. You may not want to know that and you may think they should keep it hidden , I do not. These are the people that uphold the honor of the United States , not people of your ilk. This being added to defense spending bill may serve as a reminder that we still need to repeal DADT as well. As for being ashamed of the label of American, I never am ashamed of my country just some of the people that live in it. Case in point, Bdawg

Obama opposes Gay Marriage, where is the liberal outrage???
Where’s Sean Penn? Where’s Rosie?
Hmmm.
crickets chirping

“It addresses nothing. It only benefits lawyers of specialized groups wanting to suppress speech that they find offensive. We may be free to speak, but not free to speak freely.”
More right wingers upset they can’t use slurs while assaulting someone because they are different.

“And now it becomes illegal to merely offend a protected minority.”
Nope it makes it illegal to assault or discriminate against someone because of race, gender, ethnicity, and now sexual orientation.
You and Ashley Todd can still use your favorite racial slurs.

Hate crimes are those where the only or prime reason for the crime was hatred, usually based or ancient religious hatreds. And they are done primarily to send a message of fear and go hide yourself in a self segregation, eg the gay closet – a monstrosity created by satanist churches.
I wonder what the right wing would say if the local mosque was preaching the killing of Christians, and it was happening?
Hypocrisy has no end when you are dealing with conservative religions who alwayss have to have someone to hate, to sell their message of “love”. A love that is little different then the love we see from Bin Laden and his gang – we love you if you follow us, we hate you if you don’t

Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you.
–George Carlin

Regarding Gay Marriage and Obama’s “position”…
Another slight of hand and more duplicity and dishonesty from the vapid manipulator in chief.
And Left wingers fall for it hook, line, and sinker. What willing victims you are.

Thank you, Democrats, for showing that you support pedophiles and think that NAMBLA is a “civil rights group.” That’s right, now perverts get special protection.
How ironic that liberals talk about equality, yet support special laws for certain groups.

My friends, when we allow freedom of speech to be compromised, we have indeed lost our freedom. Offensive speech must be protected. I’m sure King George found it offensive what was being said at the Boston Tea party. When this act is passed, the party in power can now start defining what is hateful. Lawyers of special/protected groups will challenge anything that they consider offensive. This road has been traveled before … it leads to tyranny.

Well said Phillip Chandler.

“Should we reward people who assault a person who is not gay?” – Matt

Mike … if that’s already true, then why is this bill neeed?

“But that constitutional protection ends when those thoughts incite action or become action.”
That’s the slippery slope that Christians will have to answer. If a perpetrator gets asked if he went to some church, and that church ever mentioned homosexuality was an abomonation to God … watch out! What will be your defense now dear Christians? That’s why this bill was seen as needed by the gay-rights activists.

So yesterday it was legal to beat up gay people?

your comments suggest that you have an utterly inaccurate grasp of the scriptural precepts of Christianity.
Posted by: tremulantclarity
I’ve read a lot of the Old testament and found it to be a brutal, genocidal, slavery worshiping, rape fest., along with some occasional pleasantries

Hatred is hatred, we have laws protecting all citizens today from acts of violence. Whether I get murdered or violently beaten, does not matter why the person performed the crime but it is a crime of hatred either way. People need to quit being children and saying – please protect me with a new law when we have laws in place already.
I agree with most of the other bloggers, why not focus more attention on the child predators, economy and the wars over seas vs this childish issue that had to be hidden in the Defense bill which the other party will run a campaign on Bob would not support the troops if he dared to vote NO on this bill due to the hate crimes.
Really childish, petty and we need to get those folks out of office – ALL of THEM!!

It’s about time!
Many thanks, President Obama.
You are, by far, the best President of my lifetime. Keep on doing what you do.

This is going to backfire like so many other things the government does.
Things will get worse for everyone now, including the government.
So everyone should wake up and see who is really behind all these laws and why they want them forced upon us, “we the people.”

If you are in a church that demands the right to hate, you are in the wrong church.

Oh my goodness!!! Lock your doors, hide your kids! A law was passed that clearly does not affect me personally, but it is still helping those who are different! My house must be about to burn down, and my food will magically spoil! Only Christians are striaght, so obviously no gay person deserves a “love your neighbors” approach. As a More Holy Than Thou individual, I officially hate this new law. God wrote that we should form a club, keep certain people out, judge them, and hate them because we’re too ignorant to respect free will of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We already made provisions to accept adulterers (because it’s a stright thing…so it’s okay…we’re allowed to pick-and-choose what is right, as long as it makes us look good). God was only joking when he said he was Love…it was opposite day that day.

Are there any members of minority groups who want to be protected AT ANY COST? This bill fits the definition of “throwing out the baby with the bath water”.

Who says that homosexuality is purely a thought? What is religion? Religion is more of a thought than anything gay related. Name one man who whole heartedly wanted to be with a woman, but somehow chose to go date a man just for the heck of it. NAME ONE. Who would ever chose to live a productive life against their true desires? How is it wrong for a man to have a monogomous relationship (instead of lying to another man’s daughter because he has to pretend to be straight)? Are gays not allowed to have faith in Christ and be loved by God as you are? IS GAY A SURPRISE TO OUR FATHER? To say that being gay is a “thought” is undermining anyone associated with homosexuality–a family member, the person themself, a friend, etc. IGNORANCE causes hate, and many people refuse to understand a gay lifestyle because it somehow effects them (which it doesn’t). It SHOULD be protected, because YOU AMERICANS have socialy seperated it as a minority (even those against the life style!). RELIGION is a THOUGHT and it’s protected…DON’T MAKE YOURSELF OUT TO BE BETTER BECAUSE YOU GOT YOUR LAW FIRST. We’re all equal, in the eyes of God and this country that stands under Him. God is Love, don’t hate how people love.

Ironic how this thought crime bill is attached to a defence bill funding the wars in Afgansistan and Iraq. So are we to expect members of the Pentagon and White House to be rounded up as the first victims of this bill? or are we to expect soldiers going back to the US being criminalised for their hate crimes against the Iraqis and Afganis,
Unfortunately the double standards and broken promises from the Obama administration are mounting very rapidly. Shame because I really thought he would come through on the change he promised so adamantly.
Unfortunately Obama’s campaign slogan of YES WE CAN has turned more into I WISH WE COULD

I say we all re-post Phillip Chandler’s comments so that maybe, if people see it a million times, they might begin to comprehend its message! So here it is:
At long, long last, this measure is about to be signed into law by a President who is sympathetic to the plight of gay Americans. For the record — this measure identifies a characteristic possessed by ALL Americans (sexual orientation), and then makes attacks based on hatred of the victim’s expression of that characteristic a federal crime, subject to enhanced penalties. Because the language of this measure is neutral with respect to any class of persons, the measure does NOT fall afoul of the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause (Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954)). ALL persons possess a sexual orientation (whether it be gay, heterosexual, or bisexual) — therefore this measure does not grant “special rights” to the members of any protected class. Just as an attack by a heterosexual man against a gay person would be punishable under this statute, so too would an attack by a gay person against a heterosexual man be punishable under this statute.
The fact that this measure will be used almost exclusively to protect gay persons from attacks motivated by hatred of homosexuality does nothing to change the plain language of the statute — all that this does is to reflect the continued, deep antipathy expressed by so many heterosexuals towards their gay fellow citizens.
As for the fact that this measure was attached to a defense appropriations bill — had Republicans supported this measure in the first place (instead of whining about “special rights” and mounting entirely specious arguments), it would not have been necessary to attach this measure to a defense appropriations bill.
I find it amusing that conservatives have no problem with the existing federal hate crimes law, which provides for severe penalties when acts of violence are perpetrated against people based on race or religion — it is only when sexual orientation is added to the protective ambit of this measure that those same conservatives start whining and crying foul. This leads me to wonder just how unprincipled these people really are, that they have no objections to this measure until sexual orientation is added to its protective ambit…
For the record — this measure only punishes ACTS OF VIOLENCE perpetrated against people based on hatred of their sexual orientation — it cannot and will not be used to silence ministers of religion, priests, etc. who argue that homosexuality is sinful. The US Supreme Court is very clear on this issue — even advocacy to break the law is protected by the First Amendment, unless such advocacy “…is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” (see Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)). Fears that this measure will be used to punish those who disapprove of homosexuality are entirely without foundation.

For C.Steve:
You said “I find it amusing that conservatives have no problem with the existing federal hate crimes law, which provides for severe penalties when acts of violence are perpetrated against people based on race or religion — it is only when sexual orientation is added to the protective ambit of this measure that those same conservatives start whining and crying foul.”
Not this conservative. “Hate Crime” in of itself is a ridiculous and unnecessary piece of legislation regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation etc. Let me ask you this. Were criminals just not getting prosecuted for murdering people of race, gender or sexual orientation? Were these criminals being allowed to walk free because they killed a gay person? Absolutely not. Criminals have always been prosecuted for violating the law. “Hate Crime” laws increase the penalty based on what your intent was prior to and or during your attack. The point is this. If person A is on top of person B and person A is stabbing person B to death, it makes NO difference the reason why this attack is occurring. What if person A hates everyone with green eyes and only kills people because they have green eyes? Will we create laws and increase the penalty of the crime for everyone with green eyes? No. It’s simply ridiculous and completely unnecessary. Murder is Murder and the penalty for such crimes should be the same regardless of “why” you committed Murder.

I always find it interesting to read controversial topics because the different opinions always boil down to the same thing: race, sexual orientation, and religion.
As for President Obama, he campaigned on bringing us together but so clearly, by passing this law for example, does not practice what he preached or continues to preach.
By passing this law, he is stating that a certain group of people are more protected than another group. And, it is only because of your race or orientation that you are protected by this law. THAT IS DISCRIMINATION.
Let us say that a gay couple were walking together down some small town road in a backwoods town and were beaten up. Besides the fact they were already protected under the law… now the trash that beat them are going to be punished more than someone else.
For instance, if I… a straight and white man were walking down a street with my girlfriend in a minority neighborhood were beaten up by some minorities, should we not get the same protection?
Or am I being racist now for even considering that a minority would beat us up because we are white, straight conservatives? This law certainly is discriminating against a class of people.
Why is it that just because I don’t hold the same values as someone else that I am a bigot or small minded or hateful? Could I not hold that same view about that other class? If that class voices their opinion they are held as brave and applauded but if I voice my opinion, I am just ignorant.
I don’t hate anyone and I appreciate anyone, regardless of their view that doesn’t hate others. I can easily agree to disagree.
Finally, until you do have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, it is foolish to lump all Christians into your views of religion. A relationship with Christ is NOT the same thing as organized religions so don’t even go there.

Obama’s lost.