Bigotry follies

Back in October President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act which added "perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability" to the 1969 federal hate crimes law. While some saw this as a long overdue addition to our legal code, others saw this as a trampling of free speech. I mean sure, this only is for violent acts of murder, assault, intimidation, and terrorism, but what about those who fear that this might affect them or their churches ability to bash an demonize gays? The law says that isn't going to happen, but can't people just whine about it anyway as some sort of flimsy pretext for stripping protection for gays from state law? Sure they can.

Such was the case in Oklahoma, where they didn't buy into this notion that gays are people too, so they set off to seriously de-gay their hate crimes laws. HOW DARE YOU REFER TO THEM AS OKLAHOMO! So they decided to write a bill that tried to severely hamstring those rights under state law and not allow state or local authorities to report or share hate crimes information with the feds pertaining to Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245. That's where the problem began.

Protections for sexual orientation and gender identity are actually under Section 249.
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Section 245 of the Code refers to race and religious protections. Therefore, Oklahoma actually passed a statute allowing state law enforcement officials to keep information about crimes motivated by race or religion out of the hands of federal authorities.

“The bill in its current form doesn’t take away rights from gays and lesbians,” Oklahoma State Senate Minority Leader Andrew Rice explained. “It takes away rights for religion and race.”

I'm sure the race protections being stripped out was just a happy accident, but they'll be hopping mad about religious persecution being stripped out. That's what this whole thing was pretending to be about in the first place. First they try to knock out protections for violence against gays based on "uhhhh.... religion and stuff" (caution: legal terminology), but end up stripping hate crime protection from religion. It's almost as if God was trying to tell them something about hate and using religious cover as a pretext for bigotry. Or He was at least trying to make a point about the general stupidity of state lawmakers and reading comprehension levels in Oklahoma.

Well done Oklahoma, we do love a good petard self-hoisting. Quit while you're ahead, otherwise you'll have legalized murder by the end of the week.

Stay classy, Pat

Christian Broadcasting Network televangelist Pat Robertson, on the chilling effect that the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Law will have on the baby Jesus

PAT ROBERTSON: The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for America. I’m not sure if America was the beneficiary.

Pat, unless the way these Christians are going to "speak out" on "moral issues" is by beating to death a gay man because he was gay in order to intimidate, scare, oppress, and threaten (in short, terrorism) the larger gay community, you aren't going to be affected. I haven't read the Bible in a while, but I'm pretty sure Jesus never said I had to be able to murder people I hated in order to practice His religion. I'm not entirely sure about that, it could be in the back somewhere.

Word to the wise though: tightening nooses around the necks of people (psst: black people) is what got laws like these passed in the first place. So try to choose your words more carefully next time you're outraged because you don't think you can fag-bash as hard as you used to. You can, just as long as there is no physical bashing involved. All your old bestiality, pedophile, threat to the family stuff is still good to use. Now go leg press 1 ton and relax.

This man is crazy

Last night in the House former soldier Rep. Patrick Murphy (D- PA) decided to organize a group of floor speeches that supported the repeal of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Of course that meant those who opposed it could come up to speak as well and.....we'll say they didn't disappoint. That is if you find bizarre, rambling, incoherent rants about bestiality and Nazi's happening on the floor of the House to be a non-disappointing development.

Let Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX...of course) explain. After decrying DADT as perverse social experimentation, he turned his real to what he really feared: all those gay dudes who he knows totally want him and are going make "the butt sex" with him how outraged he is that we're considering laws like the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill and making hate crimes illegal..

If you’re oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions, [...] pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations
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But people have always been willing to give up their liberties, their freedoms in order to gain economic stability. It happened in 1920 and 1930’s. Germany gave up their liberties to gain economic stability and they got a little guy with a mustache, who was the ultimate hate monger.

That's right, if we take away people's rights to use murder and violence as a form of terrorism to intimidate gays then we're just on a slippery slope towards legalizing bestiality, necrophilia, and pedophilia. Hate crimes are an American right and if we take that right away we're going to become Nazi's. He then meandered into a discussion on how he's not a racist because he voted for Alan Keyes, before walking away, leaving a stunned caucus to contemplate what the fuck it is they just listened to. So...uh yeah. Unless we keep throwing gays out of the military and keep allowing hate crimes, we're going to turn into Nazi Germany where fucking dead underage animals replaces church. Makes sense to me.

Hating gays is an inalienable Constitutional right

So the House finally got around to passing a law that expands hate crime coverage from a 1968 law that covered race, religion, and national origin to those motivated by "gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability." This was a bill that Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto, but now that we officially recognize the dawning of the 21st Century, has finally gotten some traction.

All it essentially does is allows the Government provide additional resources to local law enforcement to prosecute the crimes, such as the case of Matthew Shepard, where the local law enforcement had to furlough 5 detectives in order to pay for the investigation because it was a hate crime against a gay man. Via ThinkProgress, we learn how this new law is, of course, the worst thing ever and the latest tyrannical liberal assault on free speech.

REP MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): I feel that this hate crime legislation could be considered the very definition of tyranny.

REP. GRESHMAN BARRET (R-SC): This bill would inhibit religious freedom in our society -- a scary thought.

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): You think a pregnant mother does not deserve the protection of a homosexual? You think a military member doesn't deserve the protection of a transvestite?

REP. STEVE KING (R-IA): I, Mr. Speaker, oppose and I defy the logic of the people that would advocate for such legislation the very idea we could divine what goes on in the heads of people when they commit crimes.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) called Matthew Shepherd's murder "a hoax" and denied that it was a hate crime.

Yes....prosecuting people for killing gays because they are gay is an assault on religious freedom. Prosecuting violent crimes is the same as prosecuting people for their thoughts. The right to discriminate is more important than murder prosecutions. The most important discrimination we have to worry about is discrimination against bigots. This all makes so much sense. Just when I thought there wasn't some new low for the fringe right wing to scrounge out, they rush to claim the real victims of hate crimes are the perpetrators of hate crimes and those who traffic in their ideology. I'll have to remember this after their next lecture about morals.