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People for the American Way has released a document about the tired, hoary, untethered-from-reality pack of lies that the professional anti-gay set keeps spewing about hate crimes legislation, “As Senate Prepares to Take Up Hate Crimes Bill, Far Right’s Inflammatory Claims Should Not Be Taken Seriously.”
For instance, it’s hard to believe that anyone would buy this flaming pile of crap from Daddy D:
As I’m recording this video greeting, there’s a so-called hate crimes bill that’s working its way through the congress that contains no adequate safeguards to protect the preaching of God’s word. Because the liberals in Congress would not define sexual orientation, we have to assume that protection under the law will be extended to the 30 sexual disorders identified as such by the American Psychiatric Association. Let me read just a few of them: bisexuality, exhibitionism, fetishism, incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual masochism, urophilia, voyeurism, and bestiality. Those are just a few. And I have to ask, have we gone completely mad?
How many times have we heard hate crimes legislation labeled the ‘Pedophile Protection Act’?
One appalling development has been the return to public discourse of public officials openly equating gay rights with support for pedophilia, a false and hugely inflammatory charge that seemed to have faded somewhat as equality for gay people gained support among the American public. But in their desperation to defeat hate crimes legislation, Members of Congress joined James Dobson and other Religious Right leaders insisting that Democrats were giving rights to pedophiles at the expense of Christians. One WorldNetDaily story used the phrase “Pedophile Protection Act” no fewer than four times in referring to federal hate crimes legislation under consideration, once quoting Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas using the term.
Here’s Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition:
“Ensures that crimes against a transgender, drag queen or a gay man are treated more harshly than a sexual assault on a child. It will make pedophiles a protected class who can claim federal protection if they are injured by a parent as a result of molesting a child.”
Pedophilia is not protected and it’s certainly not a “sexual orientation.” More below the fold.
The first falsehood is that because the bill does not include an explicit definition of “sexual orientation,” the term would be used to cover, depending on which Religious Right figure is speaking at any moment, either a list of 30 “paraphilias” listed in the American Psychicatric Association’s current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or a much larger list of “547 sexual deviancies,” as claimed by radio host Janet Porter and RightMarch.com PAC. The ever-memorable Pat Robertson suggested that it might protect “people who have sex with ducks.”…Here’s the simple fact regarding a definition of sexual orientation: Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation by anyone’s definition – only in the imagination of Religious Right organizations and political figures trying to derail the legislation with the most inflammatory charge they can come up with. As Rep. Tammy Baldwin pointed out during debate, sexual orientation is explicitly defined in the federal hate crimes statistics act as “consensual heterosexuality and homosexuality. And in spite of the Right’s claims about paraphilias, the American Psychiatric Association defines sexual orientation very clearly as homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality.
What is it with the right wing and bestiality, anyway? It makes you wonder…
And, of course, the most infamous claim of the bible-beating set is that it will be the The End of Religious Liberty.
* In mid-June, more than 60 people, including pretty much all the major Religious Right figures and friends like Tom DeLay, sent a letter to Senators claiming that the hate crimes bill would criminalize preaching the Gospel and would, among other evils, “Silence the moral voice of the Church,” “Punish principled dissent from the homosexual agenda,” and “Be a savage and perhaps fatal blow to First Amendment freedom of expression.”* Janet Porter, a leading supporter of Mike Huckabee’s presidential bid, helped boost a Flag Day (Sunday, June 14) effort involving pastors “standing for freedom by exposing this dangerous bill that could land them in jail for the ‘crime’ of reading from Romans.” Porter, a WorldNetDaily columnist, was also behind a letter writing campaign to the Hill; its claims to have sent 700,000 letters sounds impressive until you read that people paid a lump sum to have 100 letters (one to each senator) generated over their name.
* The American Family Association’s Donald Wildmon sent activists an alert in late June under a headline that screamed, “The ‘Hate Crimes’ bill will take away our religious freedoms.”
* Pat Robertson recently told viewers of his 700 Club show that the bill would prevent pastors from preaching against homosexuality, claiming that “if anybody speaks out about homosexuality, says it’s a sin, says its wrong, says it’s against the Bible, that individual would be charged with a quote, hate crime.”
* On the eve of the House bill’s passage, GOP Representatives Louie Gohmert of Texas and Trent Franks of Arizona joined Bishop Harry Jackson and spokespeople from the Traditional Values Coalition and Concerned Women for America to claim that preaching against homosexuality would become a hate crime. Talking points handed out by Rep. Louie Gohmert’s staff claimed that “The Hate Crimes bill creates a new Federal “Thought Crime.”
But just to be clear, both House and Senate versions of the legislation include clear and explicit affirmations for speech and religious teaching. Here’s language from the bill about to be taken up in the Senate:
Where do you see pastors in shackles in this language from the bill:
CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence.FREE EXPRESSION- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual’s expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual’s membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs.
Please go read the full report. I’m sure we’ll hear some of the same ridiculous sound bites come out of the mouths of homophobic senators on the floor.
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Here’s the letter FRC sent to preachersbefore the July 5th Call 2 Fall brainwashing sunday.
Right. Bike riding and tennis also not excluded from the bill because those activities have nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.
“Where do you see pastors in shackles in this language from the bill”there will be so many disappointed preachers who can’t martyr themselves in jail, lol! i have yet to hear one of this lot explain why, for example, kris mineau or brian camenker aren’t in jail right now in massachusetts. after all, massachusetts has a hate crimes bill. or how about my oln ken hutcherson? we have an includive lgbt hate crimes law here in washington state, yet he roams free going on and on about how he’ll gladly be arrested when hate crimes bills pass. well they’re here already buddy, lol!
Where do I see pastors in shackles? It is in this sentence from the quote you made from the statute, Pam:
These Christianists are telling us that the Matthew Shepard Act, if enacted, violates their religious freedom to call from the pulpit, for the killing of wiccans, gays, wiccans, adulterers and Jews, using the appropriate biblical quotes, such as:
Exodus 22:18
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Leviticus 20:10
And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 20:27
A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.
Matthew 27:25
Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
I note that Leviticus, notably chapter 20, contains a whole lot of things that require putting people to death. These people think they should be protected in advocating that people take up stones to kill their neighbor because their neighbor is different, just because they can find a bible quote and justify it on the basis of their “freedom of religion.”
There is no other rational way to interpret their position – the law would clearly exempt religious belief, but would carve out incitement to murder or violence, even if it is from the pulpit. If they are arguing against the law on the basis that it would stifle their right to preach as they see fit, it is this incitement, this whipping up, this lust for the blood of the people they despise, that they wish to protect.
Not so sureUnder the current constitutional standard, not all speech that seems to favor violence constitutes a punishable “incitement to violence”. Branzburg: In order to fall outside constitutional protection, speech must both be directed at imminent lawless action AND be likely to incite such lawless action.
Disgusting as it is, plain old hateful preaching that doesn’t call on people to kill will fail on the direction requirement. And, sick as it is, even preaching that recites historical acts of violence or speculates as to God’s wrath will probably not be seen as likely to incite your average churchgoer.
Granted, I don’t deny that there ARE Christianistas who’d run afoul of the Branzburg standard. Michael Marcavage (Repent America) comes IMMEDIATELY to mind. Standing in a crowd with a bullhorn, under stressful, confrontational circumstances, and advocating directly for violence against queer folks, easily qualifies for both prongs of the test. But it won’t take a hate-crime enhancement to punish that – he’ll already be nailed under existing disorderly-conduct and incitement to riot statutes.
With respect to pure speech, the hate crime enhancements won’t do anything that isn’t already being done. And with respect to conduct, there has never BEEN a constitutional right to go around acting violently upon one’s beliefs. The hate-crime laws won’t punish anything until there’s an act which is already criminal – and then they simply enhance the punishment if this criminal act is proven (as an element, and thus to the full criminal standard of proof) to have been motivated by bias. The religious loons are just being paranoid.
Daddy Dobson…didn’t he used to be someone?
I wish there wasn’t that big photo of PerkinsHe’s not good for my blood pressure. If I wrote even half of what I’d like to see befall that racist pig, I wouldn’t be in the civility clubhouse.
yup!Same thing with “Loony Lou” Sheldon and his gang of nutcases!
It seems to me that “conservative churches” have done an amazing job of protecting pedophilia for many decades. After all, I’ve never seen any of them push hard for constitutional amendments to dissolve the marriages of heterosexual pedophiles who produce their own children to abuse – in fact, I’m not sure any state requires those marriages be dissolved once someone is discovered to be a pedophile.
And since we certainly know of the amazing effort the Catholic Church created to cover up criminal child sexual abuse, it isn’t disingenuous to wonder if it wasn’t subtle church policy to protect perpetrators. It isn’t even too far of a hop to imagine there were pedophile priests marrying heterosexual pedophiles right at the altar. One wonders how many of these marriages have ever been forcibly dissolved by the Church once the practice came out.
While it wasn’t considered pedophilia, many states which claim to be the most concerned about morality are the same ones which allowed young teens to marry. Georgia’s law comes to mind immediately – a state which, while the legislature and the wingnuts went hysterical about banning gay marriage in the constitution, politicians acted surprised when a year or so later, parents of a 13 or 14 year old could do nothing to prevent the marriage of a boy to his friends mama, cuz she was pregnant – and state law didn’t require parental permission. Legislators pleaded complete ignorance of the law, of course, and got rid of it….though surprisingly I think that effort was led by the sole open lesbian legislator whose right to marry had just been banned in the state constitution.
It amazes me when these religious wingnuts try to throw in the “pedophile” claim into things like these hate crimes laws. . .because their own history of protecting child sexual abuse is rather sad. And after all, these are the same ‘religious” organizations who will claim God allows them to commit any sin or crime they like (such as adultery) for as long as they like – or until the public finds out. . .and then they are magically forgiven.
But then we come to the crap about pastors being unable to preach against homosexuality, easily the number one “sin” (well, perhaps tied with being a woman who controls her own body) in these hetersupremacist penis-worshipping “churches.” Never mind that these same churches rail against the Mormon menace, or the Catholic evil, or the Islamic satan and none of them ever get arrested.
And of course these are the same “religious” organizations who also created a cabal of legal firms to “protect” their own “special class” status, including their self-taught right to impose their “religious” doctrine on all others through the law.
GOPUSA: Aren’t They All ‘Hate’ Crimes?From Bobby Eberle at GOPUSA:
Well, if not senators on the floor…The GOP is apparently picking up the talking points from the same groups that PFAW was highlighting.
worked off some of my distaste for Perkins http://img.villagephotos.com/p…
Thanks for the clarificationI agree especially with your conclusion:
Let’s say that there is speech behavior from the pulpit that already meets the Branzburg standard – perhaps they might see the Matthew Shepard Act (which isn’t a classic hate crimes law, it only provides for beefed-up federal assistance to local law enforcement to investigate hate crimes) as creating an environment in which prosecutors and the public might be more likely to interpret their speech which crosses the line as being beyond the pale.
I also see a more insidious goal – the Dominionist Christianists have the ultimate goal of imposing their religious beliefs on the nation by adopting what one might describe as a Christianist analogy to Islamic law (Shariah). In Muslim nations that have adopted Shariah, it impacts both religious and secular life. In some of these countries, religious leaders have no compunction about whipping up their followers to violence against those perceived to be sinners.
To these Dominionists, the Matthew Shepard Act is a step in the wrong direction, actually providing investigative tools to help prosecute those who they see as only following their religious duty to exterminate classes of people they see as sinners.