HATE BILL PASSES!
By Rev. Ted Pike
27 Sep 07
By a vote of 60 to 39 this morning, Sens. Kennedy and Smith’s
hate crimes amendment was attached to the defense authorization act. After
three days of virtual silence, several Republican senators spoke
against the bill within the two hours of debate. Sen. Lindsey
Graham briefly argued that, if passed, the President will veto the
hate bill and arms bill together, jeopardizing timely support of
our troops. Sen. Jeff Sessions contended that states are adequately
dealing with hate crimes and that Kennedy’s amendment burdens
the defense authorization bill. Senate majority leader Mitch
McConnell, arriving after the debate, was allowed to very briefly
state that a hate bill was irrelevant to an arms bill.
The real hero of the day was Sen. Orrin Hatch. Yesterday
he stood alone among Republicans to publicly oppose the hate bill. But
today he spoke three times with powerful, logical, legal, and constitutional
reasons why the hate bill is redundant to state law enforcement,
which adequately deals with all kinds of violent crime. He
said that gender identity, as put forth in this legislation, is unclear. Its
definition depends on the subjective perceptions of both the hate
criminal and the victim. He offered his own amendment (which
was later passed unanimously) calling for the federal government
to authorize studies to determine if states are adequately enforcing
hate crimes laws.
If only one more pro-hate
bill Senator, Democrat or Republican, had been persuaded, either
by massive calling during the last week or by impassioned attack
of the hate bill on the floor of the Senate, the hate bill would
have been destroyed in this Congress. It would have to be resubmitted
in the next Congress under the stigma of having been rejected six
times. Yes, the President has promised to veto today’s hate
bill victory. But at the same time, the hate bill, through passage
now by both House and Senate, is energized and dignified as never
before to be easily ratified in the next Congress, little more than
a year from now.
Credit for hate bill victory must largely go to the repeated impassioned
speeches by Sens. Kennedy and Smith, but leaders of the religious
right and Republican senators are, by default, just as responsible. Since
the defense appropriations act was introduced 16 days ago, opening
the possibility of hate bill attachment, there has been an astonishing
lack of consistent warning from leaders of the religious right. This
has grown even more acute since Monday, with a virtual blackout of
warning from all new right websites (See, Do
New Right Leaders Want Hate Bill Passed? and Hate
Bill Ready for a Vote). As a result, the millions of calls
which might have been generated amounted to a relative trickle. Only
at the last minute, yesterday, when it became virtually impossible
to influence today’s Senate vote, did new right leaders send
out calls to action.
Such dereliction of duty was reflected on the floor of the Senate
this week by the silence of Senators well known to oppose hate laws. Day
after day they ignored invitations to speak to the Senate against
the hate bill.
Both new right leaders and Republican senators represent themselves
as watchmen on the wall, guardians of our freedom. Yet God
told the prophet Ezekiel that if, as such a watchman, he knew the
enemy was coming and yet did not sound the alarm, he would lose his
eternal soul (Ez. 33)
For the past several weeks, both Christian and Republican leaders
have seen the enemy coming. Yet they did not sound the alarm
in a timely and effective way. For this they will have to answer
to their Creator. Meanwhile, all Americans now are very, very
much closer to having to answer to the federal “thought police” for
every idle word that is not politically correct.
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
Let the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith teach you how they
have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
Learn how ADL took away free speech in Canada and wants to steal
it now in the U.S. Congress. Watch Rev. Ted Pike's Hate
Laws: Making Criminals of Christians at video.google.com. Purchase
this gripping documentary to show at church. Order online at www.truthtellers.org for
$24.90, DVD or VHS, by calling 503-853-3688, or at the address below.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this
topic. Call (503) 631-3808.
National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas,
OR 97015
