EMERGENCY ALERT!
HATE BILL INTRODUCED INTO CONGRESS
By Rev. Ted Pike
9 Jan 09
The federal hate crimes bill was reintroduced Wednesday by Rep. Sheila
Jackson-Lee. It is now titled the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention
Act of 2009, H.R. 256, and is a condensed version of
the longer Local
Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1592 (which failed
to gain final approval from Congress last year). Jackson-Lee also submitted
a new companion bill, the David Ray Ritcheson Hate Crime Prevention
Act, H.R. 262. This bill will permit federal involvement
in states to "prevent" hate crimes and assist hate crimes
victims.
Both bills will authorize unprecedented intervention in states' rights. H.R.
256 is the most dangerous. It will transform America into a national hate crimes
bureaucracy and end free speech, as has happened in Canada.
Hope Emerges!
In an extended conversation, Jackson-Lee's hate bill expert explained
these bills to me. To my amazement, he said the Christian/conservative
complaint that hate laws end free speech is so widespread in Congress
that he fears the federal hate bill might not pass! Anticipating
that contingency, he said, the milder H.R. 262 was created to empower
the federal government to enter state hate law jurisdiction in a
less threatening way--now described as "education" and
assistance of victims.
Of course, even this softer hate bill could support expanded legislation and
legal precedents to ultimately fulfill the original hate bill's objectives.
For this reason, it also must be defeated!
Yet this staffer's candid remarks indicate that Congress has been hearing our
protest about the reality of hate law abuse around the world. This renews our
hope to defeat all hate bills once and for all. Of course, we wouldn't relax
near a wounded rattlesnake until its head was cut off; so we must protest the
federal hate bill until it never rears its ugly head again.
Window of Opportunity
Congress is presently preoccupied with the economic stimulus package.
But Jackson-Lee's staffer told me that hate bill supporters hope
to move it rapidly through the House and Senate Judiciaries as soon
as early February. He said House Judiciary hearings will be held.
If the bill is allowed to progress to passage by the House and Senate,
as it did last year, probably nothing will keep it from being signed
into law by President-elect Obama, a staunch hate bill supporter.
How can lovers of free speech hold back the hate bill monster? We must repeat
the strategy that killed the hate bill in the last Congress and helped defeat
at least five other pieces of anti-Christian, anti-liberty legislation. [1]
Here's how that legislative miracle happened.
This time two years ago, Democrat and Republican hate bill forces dominated
Congress as they do today; defeat of the hate bill seemed impossible. Incredibly,
until mid-February, there was virtually no public recognition by the
American religious right that the hate bill was even in Congress!
It was entirely up to our National Prayer Network to organize opposition. We
urged protest through many e-alerts and interviews on alternative talk radio.
I urged our relatively small audience to protest to those most influential
in hate bill passage or rejection: the 40 members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Thousands called, bombarding committee members for at least three weeks. In
response, usually lethargic Republicans sprang into action. They creatively
offered no fewer than 11 amendments to the hate bill in committee. (In the
previous Congress, virtually the same House Republicans, unmotivated by constituent
concern, sat mutely while the hate bill passed the House in only 45 minutes!)
That winter, during and after the hate bill hearings, feisty Republican opposition
was the talk of Washington as embarrassed, defensive Democrats could only hunker
down under compelling objections. In fact, our phone calls of protest, which
remained steady through the first weeks of February, radiated out through the
House, stimulating almost all Republicans to fight!
Awakening the Religious Right
In mid-February, five weeks after the hate bill was introduced,
I was finally able to awaken an oblivious Christian/conservative
right. My Feb.14 article, Who's
Warning about the Hate Bill? was sent to Bob Unruh, writer
for WorldNetDaily. In only eight hours he wrote a WND article that
galvanized the new right into explosive action, generating millions
of calls opposing the hate bill. This reverberated to the White House;
a usually indifferent Pres. Bush recognized the groundswell of support
and vowed to veto the hate bill if it passed Congress.
Early and vehement opposition thus stimulated an eventual 180 House Republicans
to slow down the Democratic agenda. Though the hate bill passed the House,
Democrats (largely cowed by threat of presidential veto of the hate bill and
ENDA) dawdled and lost focus for the first year. By the second year of the
110th Congress, the presidential race had begun and Democrats were eager to
project "family values." Virtually all steam was lost for a militantly
liberal, pro-homosexual legislative agenda -- one they thought could easily
pass a year earlier.
The initial decisive protest by thousands of our audience in January-February
2007 thus played a primary role in delaying hate bill passage. Grassroots activists
stood in the gap for freedom and held the lines until massive reinforcements
arrived from the religious right.
The record of the 110th Congress is unambiguous: Democrats failed to pass any
major federal bias, hate crime, or Christian-persecuting legislation.
We Can Do It Again!
To save free speech, we must replicate this strategy. We must prepare
to again call all 40 members of the House Judiciary Committee. In
the next several weeks, some 20 new members will be added to the
committee and their names will be posted at www.truthtellers.org.
Meanwhile, call NOW your members of Congress toll-free at
1-877-651-6437 or toll 1-202-225-3121. Also call as many other members of Congress and
especially members of the Senate (names posted at www.truthtellers.org)
and protest the hate bill. Call each with the familiar message now resounding
through Congress: "Please do not vote for both hate crimes bills,
H.R. 256 and H.R. 262. Hate laws have taken away free speech in Canada and
many European countries!"
It is doubtful if we can win in the House. But there is a good chance, if massive
protest continues, that members of the Senate might defect and vote against
the hate bill. As a result of such protest two years ago, no fewer than four
Democrats in the Senate and 11 Democrats in the House bucked their party and
voted against the hate bill. If four or more Democrats are again persuaded
to vote against the hate bill, we may still narrowly defeat it.
Also remember that, above all human strategy, God Almighty is on our side.
If we turn to Him in faith and contrition, He will deliver America again from
the hate bill, as He has done for the past 10 years.
Repeatedly, the cause of freedom seemed hopeless. We were overwhelmingly outnumbered.
Yet, at the last moment, God repeatedly brought hate bill forces into confusion
and defeated it. It is a small thing for Him to save free speech.
But it's going to take real effort to pass on to our children a free America.
With God's help, we can do it one more time -- or as many times as we unite
faith with action.
Endnote:
1. Christian-persecuting or anti-free speech legislation defeated or delayed
in the 110th Congress include the grassroots-persecuting Sec. 220
of the Lobbyist
Reform Act in the Senate; the grassroots-persecuting Shea-Meehan
amendment to the Lobbyist Reform Bill in the House; the Executive
Branch Reform Act (Rep. Henry Waxman's speech control bill in the House);
the Department
of Peace Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA); the Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Act; and the federal hate crimes
bill.
Listen to Rev. Ted Pike debunk hate bill lies. Watch our 10-minute
video, "Hate
Laws Lies: Exposed!" at www.truthtellers.org. Also at
www.truthtellers.org, watch our gripping 82-minute documentary "Hate
Laws: Making Criminals of Christians."
Let the Anti-Defamation League teach you how they have saddled 45 states with
hate laws capable of persecuting Christians, and spearhead attempts to pass the
federal hate crimes bill: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this subject.
Call (503) 631-3808.
National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas,
OR 97015
