www.eaglesup.com
THE HIDDEN AGENDA LURKING BENEATH
HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION
By: Shelley McKinney
It's the strangest thing, but trying to get hold of the essence of what the PC brigade call "hate crimes" is like trying to grab a bar of soap swimming in a bathtub full of canola oil -- just when you think you've got a grip, the pesky thing goes slip-slidin' away once again and darts to the other side of the tub. I read a great many articles on this topic, yet kept coming up empty-handed, with odd little black specks floating in my vision from spending too much time peering into my computer monitor. Incidentally, this would be the moment to express relief that my ISP provides me with unlimited Internet access, but there are more important things at hand.
I finally found "the essence" today.
I'm telling you, if you ever want to punish yourself (whether you deserve it or not) go to the major Internet news networks and key the term "hate crimes" into their search fields. You will be treated to the dreariest assortment of articles about gay students being tortured, black people being tortured, and religious folk being gunned down and/or having their places of worship reduced to piles of smoking rubble you could ever hope to NOT see. There couldn't be a better topic for proving that the human race is indeed a fallen one, suffering from severely challenged fundamental decency right from the heart. The heart of the writing lies in the research, however, and when I began reading about two of the most widely-reported murder cases in recent years and trying to link the deaths of James Byrd and Matthew Sheppard under the heading of "hate crimes," what I believe I discovered was unnerving, to say the very least.
What I gleaned from all those depressing articles was this: the murders of Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd were horrible, unthinkable; the acts of a sub-human species. To see their killers' pictures on the newspaper articles I downloaded made me cringe with horror: These men all looked so normal to have such blackness hidden in their souls. Shootings in churches, burning crosses in the front yards of quiet and dignified black families, and violent acts of anti-Semitism shouldn't even belong to our place in time...surely that kind of ugliness was done away with when Hitler got blasted out of that bunker, but apparently not.
As I read, however, all I could think was that these things were criminal acts that needed to be punished accordingly, preferably, in my opinion, by being fried like a tater-tot in some particularly sinister looking electric chair -- they just needed to be dealt with, not elevated by giving them some special code name, as if killing one type of person was bad, but it was even worse to kill another type. I have to admit that I just didn't get it, until I read this press release from Reuters. The dateline for this story is Atlanta, October 1999.
"President Clinton tried to build support [in a speech on] Friday for proposed hate-crime legislation that would broaden federal prosecution of violent crimes to those motivated by the fact that the victim is gay. [This would] give federal prosecutors the power to prosecute certain hate crimes committed because of a victim's sexual orientation, gender, or disability."
I found this very confusing, because haven't people always been punished for these crimes? It's never been okay to kill anybody here in the United States, homo- or heterosexual, able bodied or disabled, male or female. I thought that was supposed to be the point of the laws regulating people's murderous impulses, and I might add that capital offenses like murder used to be dealt with much more harshly in times past.
No, I really believe what we're seeing here with all this nonsensical talk about how we need more legislation for hate crimes is just a cover up for the real agenda, which is special political and social treatment for homosexuals. Otherwise, how can anybody explain why we need more legislation to make it possible to punish an act (murder) that is already illegal? It makes more sense to me to just enforce the laws we already have. Call me a kooky, right-wing dreamer, but considering the fact that the average up-the-river jaunt for killing a fellow human being is a mere seven years, I can't help but hope wistfully that the death penalty will someday be re-instated in all fifty states. Capital punishment has its own grim way of deterring people from committing murder. Nowadays, doing hard time isn't seen as too much of a chore, what with cable television and exercise rooms and conjugal visits in the pen; it even has a certain cachet on the streets.
So I had a real light-bulb-over-the-head moment when I realized what President Clinton and certain Senators and a certain powerful lobby are really trying to put across. Maybe Clinton views this as his legacy: that it is a naughty, ill-tempered thing to kill anybody, but if you kill a gay person, you're just evil, that's all. And you will be punished to the maximum extent of the law for killing a member of the group whose civil liberties transcend those of all us crummy, regular ol' citizen types out here. I find this frightening, to see our culture launching itself with such merry insouciance right smack down into the middle of George Orwell's Animal Farm, where "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Senator Edward Kennedy's Hate Crime Amendment (which is co-sponsored by such PC luminaries as Tom Daschle, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein) will "enhance federal enforcement of hate crimes," and if that makes you say "Whaa-?!" you're not alone. As I said in a previous paragraph, we could "enhance" the existing laws by actually enforcing them, but that's just too easy for the PC crowd. When you start reading a lot of this hate crime stuff, the more you start to get the sense that it is all about people not being "mean-spirited" to homosexuals in any way, shape, or form, more than it's about how it's wrong to kill any person at all. I begin to cynically believe that race, gender, and disability are just mentioned as a cover for the real issue. So what I want to know is where amendments like this one will lead, because not all hate crimes result in the death of a member of a protected group.
It's not unreasonable to think that sometime in the future it will be considered a "hate crime" for the Boy Scouts of America to not wish to have homosexual Scoutmasters. Consider the recent news out of Connecticut about the Boy Scouts: they are no longer a charity eligible for state payroll deductions because of their stance on homosexuals. That's a beginning, isn't it? Or perhaps certain churches and ministers will be hauled into court for refusing to sanction homosexual "marriages," or for not wanting to employ a homosexual youth director. The United Methodist Church is already coming under fire for the position on homosexuality it took earlier in May at the General Conference. They merely said something to the effect of "homosexuality is probably not God's perfect will for any person," yet that decision at the conference has led to some blistering comments from gay groups and more liberal-minded Methodists, more than several of whom are ordained Methodist ministers. Some of those ministers have defiantly stated that they will continue to perform same-sex "union" ceremonies, despite the disapproval of the governing body. The feds aren't chasing people down yet, but there seems to be a disturbing trend in that direction.
Oh, and this can lead into all kinds of scary stuff, like: "Could I get in trouble for saying that, as an evangelical Christian, I believe homosexuality to be immoral?" Not yet, but there are ominous signs that that day is coming. According to an article on hate crimes I accessed via the Concerned Women for America website called "Hate Crimes Laws: Making Thoughts a Crime" the un-named author of the article commented that, where hate crimes laws already exist, the homosexual lobby -- a huge and powerful political force -- is pushing to have "sexual orientation" added to these laws, which is what the President was referring to in his Atlanta speech. The article stated that this could change the entire face of our American civil rights, because civil rights have traditionally been based upon things which are immutable, or un-changeable, such as skin color, gender, and disability. To add "sexual orientation" to this list of immutables means that homosexuality is also immutable -- and yet no genetic scientist has ever been able to prove that this is so. If "sexual orientation" could be added to the legislation, and that legislation is subsequently passed, then the gay-rights lobby has what it has been yearning for: legal "proof" that people are homosexual from birth. This would classify them as a minority, like blacks or Hispanics. "Adding sexual orientation to hate crimes laws wrongly legitimizes the claim that homosexuality is immutable rather than chosen behavior. Therefore, those who hold religious or moral objections to homosexuality could be prosecuted for 'hate'," writes the author. Oh, how I wish that this, like Animal Farm, was a work of fiction, but it isn't. It's reality, it's beginning to happen now, and our First Amendment right to free speech and free thought is being whittled away.
The problem I have with the homosexual lobby is not with their homosexuality, which I view as just another sin in the long list of sins that every single one of us has committed: it's their arrogance that raises my hackles. The essence of the hate crimes legislation is to force an acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle on a largely unwilling American populace. I know a lot of evangelical Christians, and I don't know a single one who thinks that homosexuals should be persecuted, hated, or murdered. I don't know a single person who wasn't horrified by those disgusting "Christian" people who were holding up signs at Sheppard's funeral that read "God Hates Fags." But even that isn't good enough for the homosexual lobby. They will bear no dissent, and anyone who suggests that homosexuality is morally wrong had better be ready for his own personal onslaught of hate. I've been aware for a long time, as have you, no doubt, that there are certain kinds of bigotry which are acceptable and very politically correct, and it is very PC to vilify anyone who doesn't embrace homosexuality with joy. Our very opinions stand the risk of being monitored and judged by the PC crowd, and even right now, reasonable debate simply won't be tolerated.
Radio talk-show host "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger has come under fire much more recently because of her views on this subject. Homosexual activist groups have been lobbying relentlessly to have her upcoming television show canceled before the first episode is even broadcast in September. This is nothing but the slimiest form of censorship, especially since the show's theme is slated to be on how to develop one's parenting skills. To hear the activists screech, you'd think that Laura Schlessinger was some sort of neo-Nazi punk. In fact, all she said was this: "If you're gay or a lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative, and valuabe is all true. The error is in your inability to relate sexually...to a member of the opposite sex." GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and other gay "watchdog" groups have made it clear that they will brook no dissent, and they are blatantly working to shut Schlessinger down.
Also suffering for the consequences of having the nerve to speak his own opinion is Senator Trent Lott. In June 1998, Senator Lott was a guest on The Armstrong Williams Show and was asked by the host if he believed homosexuality to be a sin. Senator Lott replied, "Yeah, it is. [But] you should love that person. You should not try to mistreat them or treat them like outcasts." His opinion, right? This is an opinion that many people happen to share, but when you're dealing with the PC crowd, you have to realize that just accepting the person isn't enough: you have to accept the lifestyle, or else.
Brian Bond, the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, responded with a remarkable reply, just oozing love and tolerance and warm fuzzy feelings: "Lott's mean-spirited pronouncements are part of an escalating pattern of political gay-baiting...hate rhetoric from anti-gay extremists and those who pander to them." My word, you'd think that Senator Lott had said that all homosexuals should be publicly executed! There were equally open-minded remarks from Deborah Kolodny and Rebecca Isaacs, both of whom are activists in the gay-rights movement. Do you see Brian Bond as a fervent supporter of your First Amendment rights, should you happen to concur with Senator Lott's or Laura Schlessinger's opinions? No, these PC pin-heads feel that they have the right to express whatever "mean-spirited" and "hate-mongering" opinion they want to, and everybody else should just shuddup.
For the record, I personally believe that homosexuality is immoral and not an "alternative lifestyle." However, this is a very complicated issue, and while I don't believe that homosexuals should be given minority status, I also don't think that they should be hated and persecuted. I find it ironic that the opinion I just stated qualifies me as a hater and persecuter of homosexuals, but -- for right now -- it's the opinion I'm allowed to have. And I certainly don't think that anyone should ever be murdered; I'd be very pleased if all decent citizens could die a peaceful death at age 93. No one ever should die the way Matthew Sheppard did, just as no one should ever die the way James Byrd did, whether they're gay, straight, black, white, or royal blue like Tinky-Winky. It's probably a darn good thing that I'm not in charge of handing down justice, because my way of dealing with the brutes that killed these two men would have been to take them out to the courthouse parking lot and have them gunned down like rabid dogs immediately after the "guilty" verdict was read, simply because the ways in which these particular crimes were carried out were so unspeakable.
No matter how swiftly and surely the subsequent justice is handed down, it will obviously never bring either of these two men back to their families. So in the end, it doesn't matter nearly so much what they were as it matters who they were: they both deserved the opportunity to live their lives for better or for worse in whatever manner they chose because -- transcending gayness or blackness --- they were human beings, created in the image of God. For this reason alone, they both deserved much better than what they got. They deserved to live. And neither of them needed hate crimes legislation to make that so.>>>
Patriot.45
www.jpfo.org www.jbs.org
Wanted to get your thougts on these I basically agree with the editor.
------------------
"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
THE HIDDEN AGENDA LURKING BENEATH
HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION
By: Shelley McKinney
It's the strangest thing, but trying to get hold of the essence of what the PC brigade call "hate crimes" is like trying to grab a bar of soap swimming in a bathtub full of canola oil -- just when you think you've got a grip, the pesky thing goes slip-slidin' away once again and darts to the other side of the tub. I read a great many articles on this topic, yet kept coming up empty-handed, with odd little black specks floating in my vision from spending too much time peering into my computer monitor. Incidentally, this would be the moment to express relief that my ISP provides me with unlimited Internet access, but there are more important things at hand.
I finally found "the essence" today.
I'm telling you, if you ever want to punish yourself (whether you deserve it or not) go to the major Internet news networks and key the term "hate crimes" into their search fields. You will be treated to the dreariest assortment of articles about gay students being tortured, black people being tortured, and religious folk being gunned down and/or having their places of worship reduced to piles of smoking rubble you could ever hope to NOT see. There couldn't be a better topic for proving that the human race is indeed a fallen one, suffering from severely challenged fundamental decency right from the heart. The heart of the writing lies in the research, however, and when I began reading about two of the most widely-reported murder cases in recent years and trying to link the deaths of James Byrd and Matthew Sheppard under the heading of "hate crimes," what I believe I discovered was unnerving, to say the very least.
What I gleaned from all those depressing articles was this: the murders of Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd were horrible, unthinkable; the acts of a sub-human species. To see their killers' pictures on the newspaper articles I downloaded made me cringe with horror: These men all looked so normal to have such blackness hidden in their souls. Shootings in churches, burning crosses in the front yards of quiet and dignified black families, and violent acts of anti-Semitism shouldn't even belong to our place in time...surely that kind of ugliness was done away with when Hitler got blasted out of that bunker, but apparently not.
As I read, however, all I could think was that these things were criminal acts that needed to be punished accordingly, preferably, in my opinion, by being fried like a tater-tot in some particularly sinister looking electric chair -- they just needed to be dealt with, not elevated by giving them some special code name, as if killing one type of person was bad, but it was even worse to kill another type. I have to admit that I just didn't get it, until I read this press release from Reuters. The dateline for this story is Atlanta, October 1999.
"President Clinton tried to build support [in a speech on] Friday for proposed hate-crime legislation that would broaden federal prosecution of violent crimes to those motivated by the fact that the victim is gay. [This would] give federal prosecutors the power to prosecute certain hate crimes committed because of a victim's sexual orientation, gender, or disability."
I found this very confusing, because haven't people always been punished for these crimes? It's never been okay to kill anybody here in the United States, homo- or heterosexual, able bodied or disabled, male or female. I thought that was supposed to be the point of the laws regulating people's murderous impulses, and I might add that capital offenses like murder used to be dealt with much more harshly in times past.
No, I really believe what we're seeing here with all this nonsensical talk about how we need more legislation for hate crimes is just a cover up for the real agenda, which is special political and social treatment for homosexuals. Otherwise, how can anybody explain why we need more legislation to make it possible to punish an act (murder) that is already illegal? It makes more sense to me to just enforce the laws we already have. Call me a kooky, right-wing dreamer, but considering the fact that the average up-the-river jaunt for killing a fellow human being is a mere seven years, I can't help but hope wistfully that the death penalty will someday be re-instated in all fifty states. Capital punishment has its own grim way of deterring people from committing murder. Nowadays, doing hard time isn't seen as too much of a chore, what with cable television and exercise rooms and conjugal visits in the pen; it even has a certain cachet on the streets.
So I had a real light-bulb-over-the-head moment when I realized what President Clinton and certain Senators and a certain powerful lobby are really trying to put across. Maybe Clinton views this as his legacy: that it is a naughty, ill-tempered thing to kill anybody, but if you kill a gay person, you're just evil, that's all. And you will be punished to the maximum extent of the law for killing a member of the group whose civil liberties transcend those of all us crummy, regular ol' citizen types out here. I find this frightening, to see our culture launching itself with such merry insouciance right smack down into the middle of George Orwell's Animal Farm, where "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Senator Edward Kennedy's Hate Crime Amendment (which is co-sponsored by such PC luminaries as Tom Daschle, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein) will "enhance federal enforcement of hate crimes," and if that makes you say "Whaa-?!" you're not alone. As I said in a previous paragraph, we could "enhance" the existing laws by actually enforcing them, but that's just too easy for the PC crowd. When you start reading a lot of this hate crime stuff, the more you start to get the sense that it is all about people not being "mean-spirited" to homosexuals in any way, shape, or form, more than it's about how it's wrong to kill any person at all. I begin to cynically believe that race, gender, and disability are just mentioned as a cover for the real issue. So what I want to know is where amendments like this one will lead, because not all hate crimes result in the death of a member of a protected group.
It's not unreasonable to think that sometime in the future it will be considered a "hate crime" for the Boy Scouts of America to not wish to have homosexual Scoutmasters. Consider the recent news out of Connecticut about the Boy Scouts: they are no longer a charity eligible for state payroll deductions because of their stance on homosexuals. That's a beginning, isn't it? Or perhaps certain churches and ministers will be hauled into court for refusing to sanction homosexual "marriages," or for not wanting to employ a homosexual youth director. The United Methodist Church is already coming under fire for the position on homosexuality it took earlier in May at the General Conference. They merely said something to the effect of "homosexuality is probably not God's perfect will for any person," yet that decision at the conference has led to some blistering comments from gay groups and more liberal-minded Methodists, more than several of whom are ordained Methodist ministers. Some of those ministers have defiantly stated that they will continue to perform same-sex "union" ceremonies, despite the disapproval of the governing body. The feds aren't chasing people down yet, but there seems to be a disturbing trend in that direction.
Oh, and this can lead into all kinds of scary stuff, like: "Could I get in trouble for saying that, as an evangelical Christian, I believe homosexuality to be immoral?" Not yet, but there are ominous signs that that day is coming. According to an article on hate crimes I accessed via the Concerned Women for America website called "Hate Crimes Laws: Making Thoughts a Crime" the un-named author of the article commented that, where hate crimes laws already exist, the homosexual lobby -- a huge and powerful political force -- is pushing to have "sexual orientation" added to these laws, which is what the President was referring to in his Atlanta speech. The article stated that this could change the entire face of our American civil rights, because civil rights have traditionally been based upon things which are immutable, or un-changeable, such as skin color, gender, and disability. To add "sexual orientation" to this list of immutables means that homosexuality is also immutable -- and yet no genetic scientist has ever been able to prove that this is so. If "sexual orientation" could be added to the legislation, and that legislation is subsequently passed, then the gay-rights lobby has what it has been yearning for: legal "proof" that people are homosexual from birth. This would classify them as a minority, like blacks or Hispanics. "Adding sexual orientation to hate crimes laws wrongly legitimizes the claim that homosexuality is immutable rather than chosen behavior. Therefore, those who hold religious or moral objections to homosexuality could be prosecuted for 'hate'," writes the author. Oh, how I wish that this, like Animal Farm, was a work of fiction, but it isn't. It's reality, it's beginning to happen now, and our First Amendment right to free speech and free thought is being whittled away.
The problem I have with the homosexual lobby is not with their homosexuality, which I view as just another sin in the long list of sins that every single one of us has committed: it's their arrogance that raises my hackles. The essence of the hate crimes legislation is to force an acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle on a largely unwilling American populace. I know a lot of evangelical Christians, and I don't know a single one who thinks that homosexuals should be persecuted, hated, or murdered. I don't know a single person who wasn't horrified by those disgusting "Christian" people who were holding up signs at Sheppard's funeral that read "God Hates Fags." But even that isn't good enough for the homosexual lobby. They will bear no dissent, and anyone who suggests that homosexuality is morally wrong had better be ready for his own personal onslaught of hate. I've been aware for a long time, as have you, no doubt, that there are certain kinds of bigotry which are acceptable and very politically correct, and it is very PC to vilify anyone who doesn't embrace homosexuality with joy. Our very opinions stand the risk of being monitored and judged by the PC crowd, and even right now, reasonable debate simply won't be tolerated.
Radio talk-show host "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger has come under fire much more recently because of her views on this subject. Homosexual activist groups have been lobbying relentlessly to have her upcoming television show canceled before the first episode is even broadcast in September. This is nothing but the slimiest form of censorship, especially since the show's theme is slated to be on how to develop one's parenting skills. To hear the activists screech, you'd think that Laura Schlessinger was some sort of neo-Nazi punk. In fact, all she said was this: "If you're gay or a lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative, and valuabe is all true. The error is in your inability to relate sexually...to a member of the opposite sex." GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and other gay "watchdog" groups have made it clear that they will brook no dissent, and they are blatantly working to shut Schlessinger down.
Also suffering for the consequences of having the nerve to speak his own opinion is Senator Trent Lott. In June 1998, Senator Lott was a guest on The Armstrong Williams Show and was asked by the host if he believed homosexuality to be a sin. Senator Lott replied, "Yeah, it is. [But] you should love that person. You should not try to mistreat them or treat them like outcasts." His opinion, right? This is an opinion that many people happen to share, but when you're dealing with the PC crowd, you have to realize that just accepting the person isn't enough: you have to accept the lifestyle, or else.
Brian Bond, the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, responded with a remarkable reply, just oozing love and tolerance and warm fuzzy feelings: "Lott's mean-spirited pronouncements are part of an escalating pattern of political gay-baiting...hate rhetoric from anti-gay extremists and those who pander to them." My word, you'd think that Senator Lott had said that all homosexuals should be publicly executed! There were equally open-minded remarks from Deborah Kolodny and Rebecca Isaacs, both of whom are activists in the gay-rights movement. Do you see Brian Bond as a fervent supporter of your First Amendment rights, should you happen to concur with Senator Lott's or Laura Schlessinger's opinions? No, these PC pin-heads feel that they have the right to express whatever "mean-spirited" and "hate-mongering" opinion they want to, and everybody else should just shuddup.
For the record, I personally believe that homosexuality is immoral and not an "alternative lifestyle." However, this is a very complicated issue, and while I don't believe that homosexuals should be given minority status, I also don't think that they should be hated and persecuted. I find it ironic that the opinion I just stated qualifies me as a hater and persecuter of homosexuals, but -- for right now -- it's the opinion I'm allowed to have. And I certainly don't think that anyone should ever be murdered; I'd be very pleased if all decent citizens could die a peaceful death at age 93. No one ever should die the way Matthew Sheppard did, just as no one should ever die the way James Byrd did, whether they're gay, straight, black, white, or royal blue like Tinky-Winky. It's probably a darn good thing that I'm not in charge of handing down justice, because my way of dealing with the brutes that killed these two men would have been to take them out to the courthouse parking lot and have them gunned down like rabid dogs immediately after the "guilty" verdict was read, simply because the ways in which these particular crimes were carried out were so unspeakable.
No matter how swiftly and surely the subsequent justice is handed down, it will obviously never bring either of these two men back to their families. So in the end, it doesn't matter nearly so much what they were as it matters who they were: they both deserved the opportunity to live their lives for better or for worse in whatever manner they chose because -- transcending gayness or blackness --- they were human beings, created in the image of God. For this reason alone, they both deserved much better than what they got. They deserved to live. And neither of them needed hate crimes legislation to make that so.>>>
Patriot.45
www.jpfo.org www.jbs.org
Wanted to get your thougts on these I basically agree with the editor.
------------------
"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
.
)