Senate Passes Bill Expanding Hate Crimes Law

Now that is right funny garry.....

only in Texas, and only if you're innocent.

Almost buried (in the next to last paragraph) was mention that the bill was tacked on to the Defense Department Budget. Were the 68 votes really intended to support hate crimes legislation or primarily aimed at funding national defense and support of our troops in iraq and Afghanistan? I see nothing in common between the two topics, but both were put up for the same vote.
If the hate crimes bill was worthy of passage, it should have stood on its own. Tacking it on to a necessary act was deceptive and exploitive. I am disgusted at Congress for the way it combines unrelated issues to sneak through programs Reid and Pelosi decide to sponsor.

Well when people are constantly discriminated against for those reason there should be something to protect them. If someone constantly discriminated against white males, or republican males, you'd want some protection too.

cushing1:
If only that bill COULD pass on it's own. But if you read some of the lovely things people are saying about it, it would've been shot down cold. Nobody wants to be told they can't beat up and insult gays or "correctively rape" lesbians anymore. It would oppose all that is good and christian to protect them from idiots with baseball bats and psychiatric issues, just ask the head of the FRC.

And if you wanna talk disgusting and exploitive, does anyone wanna mention when they put that little "hand gun in national parks" clause into the credit laws they were trying to pass to protect people from credit card collectors? Lovely conundrum there: protect consumers from seedy practices or prevent psychotic NRA people who think they always have the right to pack heat from running loose at Yellowstone?

Very well put!!

hateme, this doesn't protect anyone from anyone else.

If I decide to kick the crap out of someone, what difference does it make if I kick the crap out of them because they're Jewish, gay, black, overweight, they talk funny, wear purple, or say "hello" to me? It doesn't. In all cases I've assaulted someone and, in all cases, it's illegal. It's not "okay" to kick the crap out of someone for any reason.

Hate crime laws don't protect anyone. They're penalty enhancers. They essentially say that if I assaulted someone and it can be proven that I did so after calling them a "m-fing (insert special victim class slur here)", the judge can add extra time or whatever at the penalty phase of the trial.

Again, it doesn't "protect" anyone from being a victim of crime anymore so than they are now.

This is a feel-good measure. And as with most measures of this nature, it offers no extra deterrent. Unless you're of the belief that a person who has it in their head to target gays is going to think twice about it because they now might get 10-15% added to their sentence. And if you DO think that, you're fooling yourself.

Who else includes the disabled. I'm assuming this includes the mentally disabled, so don't worry, you're covered.

Obviously or ignorantly, you did not grow up in the late 70's or early 80's when this was a popular group to discriminate against. Bet you never were told that the job that you were well qualified for 'had to go to a 'lessor qualified minority (your choice here), so that a 'quota' could be filled'. Guess not or you would know better....

hateme_09
1:34AM Oct 24th 2009
Well when people are constantly discriminated against for those reason there should be something to protect them. If someone constantly discriminated against white males, or republican males, you'd want some protection too.

That didn't stop 35 REPUBLICANS from voting AGAINST IT now did it! But then that shouldn't surprise us since 30 Republicans also voted AGAINST an amendment protecting rape victims.

Why AngelBaby, you were NOT supposed to notice that, let alone mention it. Women, gays, all minorities, ARE not really entitled to the same rights as White Heterosexual Males--you know, those same guys who really made the 50s the best decade evah!!

http://wp.me/pywxb-HS

Matthew Shepard’s murder was despicable, and his family’s grief unbearable, I’m sure. They have my sympathy. That being said, do all of the facts portray a hate of gays as the reason for the murder, or was the hate generated by some idiots abusing meth for five days, and becoming psychotically enraged during a robbery driven by the need for more drugs?

ABC's 20/20 did an investigation into Shepard's murder, and concluded it was meth rage that actually caused the murder. They also concluded he was targeted for robbery, not because he was gay.

For every murder, or violent act truly motivated by hate of gays, there are many thousands caused one way or another by drugs. Whether it is an addict desperate for more drugs, a drug user who has become deranged by drugs, or people killing each other over who makes the money selling drugs. Millions are affected by drugs, and drug violence, yet we don’t have “hate crimes” legislation protecting the immense number of victims of drug use and drug selling. In fact, many of the same people who are for gay hate crimes are for legalization of drugs.

Heterosexual Whites aren’t given protection under any hate crime laws. The blacks that committed the depraved, deranged acts depicted below were obviously full of racial hate.
If this isn’t a hate crime NOTHING is!

How Come This Is Not News?
Posted by David Horowitz on Oct 16th, 2009 and filed under David's Blog.

The criminals pictured above car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her.
Channon Christian was beaten and gang-raped for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breasts and put chemicals in her mouth… and then murdered her.


Knoxville (WVLT) – The District Attorney General of Knox County announced the list of charges facing now five suspects in the double murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
The District Attorney General Randy Nichols is not saying whether or not he will seek the death penalty, but he does say the State will seek conviction for all charges filed in a 24-page indictment from the Knox County Grand Jury.
Lemaricus Davidson, 25 , faces a total of 46 charges.
Letalvis Cobbins, 24 , faces a total of 46 charges.
George Thomas, 24 , faces a total of 46 charges.
Vanessa Coleman, 18 , faces 40 Tennessee state charges.
Eric Boyd, 24 , also arrested in connection with the fatal car jacking, only faces federal charges as an accessory after the fact.
The silence of the news media is deafening. I wonder why. Why hasn’t this received National coverage as the Duke ‘rape’ case did where three innocent white men were hung in public for a year although there was no evidence against them?
Oh, that’s right – these victims are white.
Why hasn’t the FBI been called in to investigate this as a hate crime?
Oh, that’s right – the victims are white.
Think about it, if a white radio shock jock uses the phrase ‘Nappy headed’, it gets 2 weeks of constant news coverage.
The murder of a black honor student in Chicago gets the attention of the president.
But if a young white couple is tortured, raped, and murdered – in one of the most heinous crimes in memory – and the perpetrators are blacks, nobody is going to hear about it.
That’s the double standard we live under – a standard imposed by a hypocritical culture that calls itself “liberal.” So much for transcending race in the age of Obama.

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/16/how-come-this-is-not-news/