Disturbing distortions: I suppose it would be way too much to ask Donald Wildmon, head of the arch-conservative, hyper-religious American Family Association, not to lie. When it comes to pushing his homophobic agenda, facts become irrelevant in his efforts to stir up his constituents about hot-button issues.
— Donald “Wildman” Wildmon
His latest target is H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which has been introduced in the House of Representatives and is headed toward a vote. Wildmon wants his legions of religious zealots to believe that, “If this Thought Crimes law passes, your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime,” he wrote on the AFA’s Web site and included in an e-mail alert today.
According to Wildmon’s view, “‘hate crimes’ laws inevitably leading to ‘hate speech’ laws targeted specifically at Christians and other faith groups who hold traditional beliefs on homosexuality.” Yeah, and smoking pot inevitably leads to mainlining heroin and following Islam inevitably leads to a life of terrorism. While Wildmon would like to have his followers believe that embedded in this bill is some poison pill that will undermine the entire Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our society, it is instead a bill that provides funds to local law enforcement to prosecute hate crimes.
The only catch is the $5 million annual alottment is held by the U.S. Attorney General, who provides the dough in the form of grants when communities apply for it. But hopefully by the time the bill is made into law we will have a new, competent AG. The bill effectively gives smaller and rural communities access to funds to pursue hate crime investigations and prosecutions that they might otherwise not be able to afford.
And these crimes are not merely calling someone names. Crimes covered under the statute are serious, violent, often involving guns or weapons, and always resulting in serious bodily injury or death.
What I think really galls Wildmon is the bill’s provision that adds gender, sexual identification and gender identity to the list of real or perceived attributes — including race, color, religion and national origin — that constitute the basis of hate crimes. He blames Democrats and gay activists for this assault on the family and the church, but his arguments, based as they are on lies and distortions, only serve to deceive his already deeply misguided followers.
One of Wildmon’s more blatant lies is calling the legislation a Democratic Party bill that he says the Dems are passing to make good on unspecified campaign promises to gay activists. While indeed the bill is sponsored by John Conyers, D-Detroit, it has 112 co-sponsors, among them such Republican stalwarts as Christogpher Shays of Connecticut, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Mark Kirk of Illinois and others.
So get on board with H.R. 1592. It’s a good law, and one that we hope will help deter hate crimes.
- Topic: Politics
- Topics: Conservative Values, Gay Politics
I wonder if Mr. Wildmon would feel the same if Christians were be beaten and killed for being Christians.
If homosexuals can be assaulted based on political incorrectness for “choosing” to be gay, then someday, if it isn’t politically correct to be Christian, they also can be beaten and killed, right?
After all, Christians “choose” to be Christians, don’t they?
Or maybe we all should leave each other alone and respect people’s right to live their own lives.
I’m a Christian, and I don’t have an opinion on homosexuality. It just doesn’t really concern me all that much.
I agree that many Christians have given the rest of us a bad name by saying things like ‘God hates fags’, etc. That’s absolutely dispicable.
However, I find it very odd that the same Democratic majority that finds there to be more ‘hate’ perpetrated when a homosexual is assaulted, is the same Democratic majority who wants to take it easy on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
It’s troubling that we are now categorizing which groups are allowed to seek ‘hate crime’ as the basis for their prosecution under the law. What about crimes against children? What about religious discrimination crimes? Church burning?
Fact is, most all terrible crimes are perpetrated because of ‘hate’. To give preferential prosecutory treatment and government funding towards a few select members of our society – based upon sexuality, of all things – is nothing short of discrimination against any victim outside of that group of individuals. They are essentially saying that someone with a homosexual sex preference is more harmed than a child who has been physically assaulted. That’s rediculous.
I also don’t believe that any sort of ‘hate crime’ legislation will deter the most hateful of the populace into not committing acts of hate. If someone hates, they aren’t exactly rational enough to think, “Oh, yeah. That’s right. They passed that Hate Crime legislation a few years back. I guess I won’t go maim and/or kill that person because I don’t want the book thrown at me.”
So what really is the point of this bill? What do they hope to accomplish? I’m not being a smart ass, either. I really want to know what you think the end result is supposed to be out of this whole thing. Maybe I’m missing something, here.
Pheisty: That’s why I included a link to the actual bill itself in the article, so you could go and read it yourself. If you were really that curious about the bill, you could have read that it also covers hate crimes based on race, color, religion and national origin, not just sexual orientation. The legislation is not intended to deter hate crimes, though that is a tacit hope implied in the language, but is intended to provide grants to communities so they can prosecute hate crimes they would otherwise be unable to afford to pursue. While I agree with you that crimes against children are egregious, they also are covered separately by other legislation.
I’m new to this particular site so perhaps my perspective about it COULD be mistaken, but I’ve been through numerous sites like this one that purports to call out the current administration and focus solely on its cast of characters and their foilbles, but failing to see the true reality of their own points of view.
How can any person with a functioning, active, productive brain, and who has actually LIVED A LIFE – that is to say, interaction with a variety of people, whether gay, straight, or bisexual, like myself, who has undergone a variety of experience in the real world, met challenges as best that their abilities will take them – and actually say that the so-called “gay agenda” – which in my humbly honest opinion is really about wanting homosexuality further legitimized in order to avoid dealing with the consequences of homosexual behavior – and their are ALWAYS CONSEQUENCES TO HOMOSEXUALITY – is something that should be fostered on the American people.
It’s disturbing and saddening that people cannot discern the evil that exist within the so-called “left”, and believe that if we can just replace one side of the bad coin with the other, that everything will be OK.
Time for people of REAL conscience and conviction to grow up, grow out of whatever naivete (and those who promote a “gay agenda” are extreme in this regard) that they have, and see that the entire coin, left and right, is corrupt.
Realist, if you’re suggesting there’s no difference between liberals and conservatives on gay issues, you are just flat wrong. Left to the own devices, conservatives would be rounding up gay people and jailing them — or worse.
Finally, there are consequences to every activity, including heterosexual sex. Not sure what your point is. If you really are saying that homosexuality always has negative consequences, you’re wrong again.