U.S. Congress - H.R.1913 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009
H.R.1913 - Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009
To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes. view all titles (4)
All Bill Titles
- Official: To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes. as introduced.
- Short: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 as introduced.
- Short: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 as reported to house.
- Short: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 as passed house.
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Displaying 1-30 of 205 total comments.
Filtered Comment [ show ]
You’d be right if practicing their calling includes acts of violence. Moreover, it gives justifications under the commerce clause and the spending clause. There is no explicit restriction on speech of any kind. Nor does it discriminate against any religious group nor codify any religious ideal.
Read it first, dude.
Filtered Comment [ show ]
Filtered Comment [ show ]
Look at Canada. Hate crime bill was passed there. It is now against the law for pastors to preach the WHOLE BIBLE.
The Canadian Law is a “Hate Speech” law, not a “Hate Crimes” law. The Law in Canada is very different in wording than the U.S. proposal. Please research Canadian law before assuming that it applies in the United States.
The point was that the Canadian law limits or restricts “Hate Speech”; which you just confirmed. His point was that there is a limitation on forms of free speech in Canada that would not allow a pastor to preach the entire bible because of the perception of hate speech in the bible in regards to the immorality of homosexuality.
Additionally, he/she was not saying that Canadian law that it applies to US Law. He/she was trying to draw parallels between this bill and existing Canadian law.
Filtered Comment [ show ]
The believers? Of what? What do you agree with, exactly? They can’t even pass this, what makes you think they’re going to pass anything else? And last time I checked, this is America, not Canada. We do not have ‘hate speech’ here. FAIRY.
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This bill has NOTHING to do with hate speech, or separation of Church and State and you know it. Typical evangelical Republicans twisting everything as a scare tactic. You don’t even KNOW the meaning of Separation of Church and State!!! You have A LOT TO LEARN!
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Gotta agree with alexgill4 on this one, while seperation between church and state are not specifically stated in our constitution, it does’nt take a rocket sceientist to open a history book, apply some deductive reasoning and come to the obvious conclusion that most of our founding forefathers did intend for there to be a very real and fundemental seperation of state and religion-hence the first ammendment.
Oh so sorry. The establishment clause. Which, by Thomas Jefferson’s own words, was meant to separate church and state, or in other words SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
Is this separation of church and state not in the constitution B.S. a Beckism or something?
Found it.
Filtered Comment [ show ]
First Amendment Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
While the words “separation of church and state” do not appear within the first amendment, it has been quoted by several opinions handed down by the Supreme Court.
Exactly.
And those opinions were taken, out of context, by a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a friend, by a Justice of a Supreme Court who chose not to look at American history and law, and instead injected his biased personal view into the opinion.
That amendment’s provision was originally intended to stop the Federal government from imposing the types of laws States imposed on their residents regarding religion. These laws regarded mandating people to go to church, excluding members from buying land or taxing members of a certain religion, establishing a government sponsored church, or making the practice of exercising a certain religion illegal.
However, after years of judicial activism and ridiculous rulings by the Supreme Court, the Establishment Clause has been turned from “freedom of religion” to “freedom from religion”, and the original meaning and intent has been lost to the general public.
The separation of religion and state (I say religion because it could just as easily apply to the numerous amounts of faiths that are in this country), while not directly mentioned, is essential. If you are to look over history, you will see that the greatest source of oppression has been that of the religious majority pushing their views on the religious minority. If the religious majority were allowed to take control of the governmental body (much like many Islamic states) through the establishment of a nationally sanctioned religion, we will end up in a system of government that oppresses those who believe something different than what the majority does. This very concept goes against the very foundations of freedom and liberty.
What about historical events like the French Revolution? The event was a bloody massacre all in the name of exalting humanism above religion. If you look over history, one will find just as much oppression at the hands of anti-religious governments and individuals who exalt humanity above the worship & respect of a higher power. The absence of religious ethics/morals/values will only lead to more events like the French Revolution.
The purpose of the American republic was to allow people to worship in freedom, how they chose to worship as long as it does not infringe upon another persons basic rights, but at the same time NOT instituting a gov’t-sanctioned religion.
Why do you have to go and attack Christians like that? Has every Christian wronged you? You’ve got a lot to learn about generalizing and making blanket, ignorant statements like the one you did about Christians. It is people like you that give the progressive minded a bad name.
The bill does not prohibit your pastor from preaching that “gays” are going to hell, it prevents your pastor from sending them there.
The pastor would not send the homosexual to hell. They would be arranging the meeting between God and the aforementioned. It is only God’s place to pass judgment.
No explicit restrictions on speech or thought… except that it calls it a hate crime and thus assumes that the law can interpret thoughts. My whole problem is that if it is a crime – prosecute the crime and not make standards based on whether there is “real or perceived” hate involved!
Exactly! If someone kills my white heterosexual mother they should do just as much time as if they kill my gay cousin.
If they kill her because she’s white or heterosexual, they would, even under this bill.
The suspect class with the most hate crimes committed against them is “Race” with African Americans reporting the most crimes against them, followed by Religion, with Jewish people topping that category. Third is sexual orientation, with the largest number of reports coming from gay men. So… yeah… it protects everyone. In fact, the FBI report even shows Hate Crimes against 22 heterosexuals and 749 white people.
It helps to do a little research.
http://bit.ly/FDHox
Our legal system already differentiates between levels of criminal culpability based on state of mind (i.e. motive – what you call “thought interpretation”). If a man goes to a bar, gets angry at another man there, picks up a beer bottle and smashes his head in, this unintentional killing is called manslaughter and will carry a lesser legal punishment than if the man went into the bar with the specific intent of killing said man, which would then be murder. I’m assuming you do not object to the law trying to “interpret” the difference in THIS situation, so why do you find the use of “state of mind” so objectionable in the case of hate crimes?
It’s motive not thought. The perception is that Hate Crimes are about the individual being attacked; they are not. Hate crimes are about the motive of the attacker: Are they attempting to terrorize an entire community with the attack? If the answer is “yes” it is a hate crime.
Similar Hate Crimes have happened against Christians and the American People for their national origin – only, you call it “terrorism.”
As the legislation spells out, hate crimes are more heinous because they can intimidate an entire community. If one person’s house gets broken into, that person is impacted. Others in the neighborhood may feel less safe and remember to lock their doors, but they have no reason to think they will be targetted for the next break in. On the other hand, if someone paints a swaztika on the house of a Jewish family, for example, other Jewish people in the community will rightly feel afraid that they could be next. (It’s also pretty easy to interpret from the swaztika painter’s actions what’s in his or her mind.)
This legislation needs to be passed to help eliminate the hate crimes that can tear apart the fabric of diverse communities.