File this one under: More laws we don’t need.
The Senate today approved a long-debated measure that would expand the federal hate crime law to cover violence against gays, and in an unusual gambit to make it difficult for President Bush to carry out his veto threat, attached it to a defense bill.
First of all, a crime is a crime. What good does it do to criminalize the motive? Second, attaching this to a defense bill is a pretty chickinshit move on the part of Senate.
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| Sen. Gordon Smith Thought Control Advocate |
Supporters of the hate-crime legislation mustered the bare minimum of 60 votes they needed to overcome a threatened filibuster. The House approved the bill earlier this year, but neither chamber appears to have the votes to override a veto.
“We have never had this bill with the potential to go as far as it is,” said Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.), one of the bill’s chief sponsors.
Standing next to a photo on the Senate floor of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was brutally beaten in Wyoming and left to die tied to a fence in 1998 and for whom the bill is named, he added: “What happened to Matthew should happen to no one.”
And beating a college student and leaving him to die tied to a fence… already against the law. But Gordon Smith thinks passing a second law will make rednecks stop hating homosexuals. Gordon Smith is a nitwit.
The legislation — the first major expansion of the hate crime statute passed in 1968 — would expand the law to cover acts of violence motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity. Existing federal law defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on religion, race, national origin or color.
What this all boils down to is this: the government wants to criminalize intention. What, exactly is intention? It’s thought. The government wants to tell you what to think. Welcome to the land of the free.
Mr. Bush, please don’t screw this one up. Get your veto pen out and start warming it up now.
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