Today's reasons why you whould be REALLY worried that Daniel J. Cassidy is advising the US Commission on Civil Rights.

THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2009

Why a Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity “Hate Crimes” Law Is Bad for You

A reader has asked why it is important to oppose the "hate crimes" legislation now before the United States Senate, since it applies to violent crime involving a weapon. The following article explains why this "Trojan horse" legislation is so insidious and threatens American freedoms.

The irrelevant and inaccurate claim that this bill will not abridge your freedom of speech

By Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Proponents of the current “hate crimes” bill before the U.S. Senate argue that it is a lie that this bill will abridge in any way free speech protections for those who publicly express opposition to homosexual practice without causing, or attempting to cause, bodily harm. This claim is both irrelevant and inaccurate.

The first step of getting “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in federal law

It is irrelevant because, as noted in Part 1, this bill does most of its damage in creating, for the first time in federal law, the special legal-protective categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The first hurdle is the biggest: getting the categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” on the books. A “hate crimes” bill functions as—no double entendre intended—the Trojan horse of an aggressive gay/transgender lobby, offering to the public the “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” law least likely to meet with massive public resistance.

Once the Trojan Horse is within the city walls, the rest of the task is relatively easy. If “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are special civil rights categories in federal law, then many other “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” laws must be passed if society is going to turn back the “homophobic hate” and “discrimination” that makes bodily crimes against homosexual and transgendered persons possible in the first place. President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already indicated their eagerness to advance this agenda.

Removing the explicit free-speech protection in the bill

The claim that this bill will not lead to an abridgement of free speech is not only irrelevant but also inaccurate. It is inaccurate, first, because the bill itself does not provide much in the way of protection of free speech rights. When it was first introduced into the House the bill contained this provision:

Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Democrats in committee removed the material in boldface so that what was voted on by the full House no longer contained the explicit mention of free speech and free exercise. The remaining phrase “expressive conduct protected …by the Constitution” begs the question about what “expressive conduct” is protected. No piece of legislation could abridge the Constitution anyway so the phrase is useless. The issue is what constitutes abridgement and that is not spelled out in this bill.

U.S. Code stipulating that inducement is as liable as commission

Second, it is inaccurate to claim that free speech will not be abridged inasmuch as other existing legislation requires an extension beyond actual physical violence.

United States Code Title 18, Section 2, stipulates that “whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.” Statements that “abet,” “counsel,” or “induce the commission” of bodily injury are thus not protected by the Constitution.

The omission of “any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses” makes it that much easier to prosecute strong statements against homosexual practice as abetting or counseling violence or as inducing its commission. There is nothing in this bill that explicitly prevents any homosexualist-activist judge, of which there are many, from ruling that calling homosexual acts a grave “abomination” by appeal to Levitical prohibitions constitutes an inducement to violence.

The existence of state and local “hate crimes” law that include mere disturbance

Third, this “hate crimes” bill puts free speech in jeopardy because some state and local “hate crime” laws already make simple assault or intimidation prosecutable offenses.

For example, the Illinois Hate Crime Law permits prosecution for mere assault (i.e., a threat or action that puts a person in apprehension of bodily harm prior to any actual harm), property trespass, “disorderly conduct,” or “harassment by telephone” or “electronic communications.” “Disorderly conduct” is defined in Illinois law as a person who “does any act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another and to provoke a breach of the peace.”

In 2007 two 16-year old girls from Crystal Lake South High School (Ill.) were arrested on felony hate crime charges for distributing about 40 fliers on cars in the student parking lot of their high school. The fliers contained an anti-homosex slur (the media have not reported what precisely the slur was) and a photo of two boys kissing, one of whom was identified as a classmate. The fliers contained no threats of violence. One of the girls was apparently getting back at a boy with whom she had once been best friend.

Assistant state’s attorney for McHenry County, Thomas Carroll, commented: “You can be charged with a hate crime if you make a statement or take an action that inflicts injury or incites a breach of the peace based on a person's race, creed, gender, or perceived sexual orientation.” Another assistant state’s attorney, Robert Windon, said: “We do not feel this type of behavior is what the First Amendment protects.” State’s attorney Lou Bianchi insisted: “This is a classic case of the kind of conduct that the state legislature was directing the law against. This is what the legislators wanted to stop, this kind of activity.”

The girls spent 18 days in jail (a juvenile detention center) and appeared in court for their hearing with shackles on their ankles. They were ordered by the judge to remain in home detention on electronic monitoring until the court sentenced them some months later. Relieved that they would be allowed to return home for the time being, the girls sobbed uncontrollably in court. Prosecutors eventually dropped the felony hate-crime charge in exchange for a plea bargain, in which the girls pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest (the girls fled the scene when a police officer arrived; they did not strike an officer).

The girls were sentenced to one year of probation, ordered to write letters of apology for distributing anti-gay fliers to the boy and the arresting officer, required to do 40 hours of community service, and given a two-week suspended sentence in the McHenry County Jail (to be implemented if the girls violated probation). The girls told the court that the whole matter was a joke that they took too far. State Attorney Louis Bianchi told the press that he still felt the hate crime charge was justified, while acknowledging that the plea bargain was fair for juveniles.

Conclusion

Claims that the homosexual and transsexual “hate crimes” bill soon to be voted on by the U.S. Senate will not lead to an abridgement of free speech rights and other liberties are both irrelevant and inaccurate.

They are irrelevant because the primary purpose of this bill is not to reduce “hate crimes” against homosexual and transgendered persons (laws against violent acts are already in place) but rather to establish “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as specially protected classifications in federal law. This establishment will make possible—indeed, inevitable—an avalanche of other “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” laws that in turn make “hateful bigots” of anyone who opposes homosexual and transsexual behavior.

They are inaccurate because (1) the bill has already had stripped from it explicit free-speech protection; (2) the U.S. legal code already stipulates that verbal “inducement” of a crime makes the inducer “punishable as a principal”; and (3) the federal “hate crimes” law will work in tandem with state and local “hate crime” laws, some of which already make prosecutable any “alarming” or “disturbing” of another.

After Obama Fails

No American President has ever died under the flag of his birth. The composition of the United States has changed routinely throughout its history. But a constantly expanding nation can also contract, and no less than the Governor of Texas has acknowledged the fissures created by big government, socialist, totalitarians. The growing Tea Party Movement, that will be seen again during the July 4 weekend, portends that either Americans will reclaim the old republic and its Constitution, or they will reassert the rights and prerogatives of the states that preceded it.

The following essay from American Thinker considers the consequences of an "extreme backlash" to a national government that no longer reflects core American values still very much alive in many states.

From American Thinker
By George Joyce

A failed presidency for Barack Obama could turn into liberalism's worst nightmare.Barely six months into his term, the 44th president has succeeded in generating the most widespread and serious discussion of secession since the Civil War. Despite what Newsweek's Evan Thomas may claim, Obama is not the "God" who will bring us together but the autocratic sponsor of an overbearing, oppressive leviathan from which a growing number of Americans are seeking refuge.

That refuge, according to author Paul Starobin, will come in the form of several regional republics that reflect the diverse character of Americans no longer bound in any meaningful way by our unrecognizable Federal government. In a riveting exploration of America 's coming breakup, Starobin writes in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

"Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society."

Starobin chronicles in fascinating detail the historical basis for America 's future balkanization. He provides a snapshot of today's most viable and vocal secessionist organizations. Starobin goes on to argue that the overbearing and stifling "Obama planners and their ilk" will probably be doomed to fail in a land replete with the Jeffersonian impulse of radical self-determination. Obama's extreme power grab, in other words, will cause a correspondingly extreme backlash:

"All of this adds up to a federal power grab that might make even FDR's New Dealers blush. But that's just the point: Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the land of Jefferson are taking a stand against an approach that stands to make an indebted citizenry yet more dependent on an already immense federal power. The backlash, already under way, is a prime stimulus for a neo-secessionist movement, the most extreme manifestation of a broader push for some form of devolution."

By focusing most of his attention on how big unwieldy entities devolve into creative little ones, Starobin's analysis misses however the more direct personal role Barack Obama himself has played in fracturing America.

Back in March of last year for example New York Times columnist Roger Cohen told his audience he could "understand the rage" of Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Without missing a beat Cohen then concluded in his essay that the "clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years."

Has Barack Obama's been an "uplifting" presidency? Mr. Obama knew full well that his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, dismissed the test results of white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, entitled to promotion but denied because they were of the wrong race. Surely her decision is demeaning to both white males and to those who study diligently for exams. Did the black firefighters feel uplifted or demeaned when Sotomayor ruled in their favor? Was the New Haven firehouse more unified or more divided after Sotomayor's ruling? Was Obama's Sotomayor choice uplifting or demeaning?

Indeed, from the Sotomayor pick and anti-business rhetoric to the endless lecturing about America 's sins, Mr. Obama is starting to sound a lot like his former pastor. To be sure Obama is not as grating and shrill as Mr. Wright but closer to something more like Jeremiah-lite. In other words, Mr. Obama's strategy seems to be to convince Americans to drink his socialist tonic out of sheer guilt. I'm not sure what is so inspiring about all of this.

Maybe this is why Starobin claims to be witnessing a lot of neo-secessionist activity. Wouldn't a new American devolution however be a liberal's worst nightmare? Beyond the psychosis most liberals would have to endure at the thought of losing any kind of control, the prospect of vibrant, happy, and successful conservative republics in places like Texas, South Carolina or Utah would be an inescapable spotlight forever exposing the failure of liberal ideology in a Republic of California.

But this brings up another problem. When the framers of the American Constitution favored a multi-state solution to the problem of centralized tyranny they argued that an additional benefit would be that each state could become a unique laboratory displaying the policy successes and failures to its neighbors. If the Republic of Texas chooses a classics curriculum for its youngsters, celebrates the family and tradition in its media, encourages personal responsibility in lieu of a nanny state, rewards citizens on the basis of merit, is tough on criminals, sends its politicians home after brief excursions to the capitol, is business friendly and generally leaves its citizens alone, how are those controlling the politically liberal Republics like California going to react?

What most liberals fail to understand is that their leisurely dabbling in progressive politics and moral equivalency is made possible by the existence of accumulated conservative moral capital. Remove the conservative anchor and progressive societies become dangerously seasick. I guess the lesson here is that liberals need conservatives more than conservatives need liberals (although society needs them on occasion). There is much in progressive ideology that simply seeks to undermine -- a strange method of establishing an identity.

While reading "A Little History of the World" to my kids the other day I came across an interesting observation by the author, E.H. Gombrich:

"Because the Egyptians were so wise and so powerful their empire lasted for a very long time. Longer than any empire the world has ever known: nearly three thousand years. And they took just as much care of their corpses, when they preserved them from rotting away, in preserving all their ancient traditions over the centuries. Their priests made quite sure that no son did anything his father had not done before him. To them, everything old was sacred."

When Obama fails it will be because he's convinced enough Americans to tire, as he has, of what used to be known as "America." Imagine what would have happened in Egypt had their priests adopted "liberation theology" rather than the standard of their fathers. A mere footnote in the pages of history.

Not Here, Not Now: Lithuania Says No to Same-Sex Propaganda in Schools

From LifeSiteNews
By Peter J. Smith

Lithuania’s Parliament has given final approval to a law designed to prohibit young people from being indoctrinated in homosexual propaganda in school or through the media.

The Seimas, Lithuania’s parliamentary body, has given final approval to a law which bans schools and media outlets from disseminating information that "agitates for homosexual, bisexual relations or polygamy."

Lawmakers had debated and narrowly rejected on June 11 an amendment to the law, which would have fined or imprisoned proponents of the homosexual lifestyle up to three years.

The final version of the law was passed with 67 parliamentarians voting in favor, three against, and four abstaining.

The ruling conservative coalition has backed the law as part of its continued efforts to strengthen and encourage the natural family.

The Baltic Times reports that the law must still have the approval of the President, who has ten days to authorize a veto after the bill is signed by Seimas Speaker Arunas Valinskas. Homosexualist lobby groups are expected to request such a veto.

The law amends the “Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information” by adding the encouragement of homosexual behaviors alongside other prohibited information, such as “the portrayal of physical or psychological violence, displaying a dead or mutilated body, [and] information that arouses fear or horror or that encourages self abuse or suicide.”

MP Aleknaite-Abramkiene told the Baltic Times that lawmakers were not intent upon discrimination against homosexuals, but instead wanted to ensure peace in the community and respect for Lithuania’s family values.

“The public opinion is quite clear – they don’t want a demonstration of sexuality,” she said. “People want to live under their rules and let one another be himself, but not to intervene in public life and influence youth.”

“This law will create a democratic balance between the majority and the minority – we want peace.”

Lithuania and its neighbor Latvia have in the last several years become major targets of propaganda and demonstrations from European homosexualists, who have staged or attempted to stage sexually provocative gay Pride parades in the capitals of Baltic nations.

Where Does Single-Payer Health Care Work?

From The National Center for Policy Analysis

Two days after President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association that in some countries a single-payer health care system "works pretty well," the White House reaffirmed that people in those countries liked their health care, but also said it did not know to which countries the president was referring.

The criticism of single-payer health care -- primarily as practiced in Canada and Europe -- has been that operations and procedures are long-delayed or denied and health care is rationed to control costs. For example:

• In Canada, the average wait for a 65-year-old man to get a hip replacement is six months, according to the Freedom Works Foundation.
  

• The average wait time in a Canadian emergency room is 16 hours and 18 minutes.
  

• Also, the average cancer test and radiation treatment cycles vary between 6 to 8 weeks, according to the foundation.

Meanwhile:

• In Great Britain, at any one time, there are about a million people waiting to get into hospitals, according to John C. Goodman, president, CEO and Kellye Wright Fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
  

• Almost 900,000 Canadian patients are on the waiting list at any point in time, according to the Fraser Institute.
  

• In New Zealand, 90,000 people are on the waiting lists, according to government figures.

"Those people constitute only about 1 to 2 percent of the population in those countries, but keep in mind that only about 15 percent of the population actually enters a hospital each year," says Goodman. "Many of the people waiting are waiting in pain. Many are risking their lives by waiting. And there is no market mechanism in these countries to get care to people who need it first."

Earlier this year, the Obama administration signed an economic recovery act into law that established a comparative effectiveness council to determine the most cost-effective medical procedures. This economic stimulus bill also included the establishment of a centrally linked electronic infrastructure that would include the medical information of every American by 2014.

Obama and most Democrats in Congress are pushing for a "public option," or government-run health insurance program that would compete with private health care companies.

Many analysts agree that the private, market-driven companies would be unable to compete with a government-run insurance program, which would have nearly unlimited resources.

Source: Fred Lucas, "White House Stands by Obama's Claim That Single-Payer Health Care Works In Other Countries -- It's Just Not Sure Which Countries Obama Meant," CNSNews.com, June 18, 2009.

For text: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49743

For more on Health Issues: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_Category=16