Congress At Work

This story has been floating around the internet for some time now, it seems, and I admit to having difficulty finding “main-stream” news sources which have covered it. However, I wanted to know what members here thought.

Back in June the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Senator Ted Kennedy's "Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act." Listed as bill S. 909, it was never voted on as a stand-alone bill. According to multiple sites around the web, Senators Leahy and Levin attached it to the Pentagon Budget under the Defense Authorization Act, S 1390.

The concern here as voiced by conservatives is that S. 909 should be known as the “pedophile protection act”, in that it defines many sexual orientations requiring protection by federal prosecutors. One such quote:

“Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate and argued essentially that since he couldn't get 60 honest votes to pass the "Punish Pastors, Protect Pedophiles" hate crimes S. 909 as a stand-alone bill, it should instead be attached as an amendment to S. 1390, 'The National Defense Authorization Act.”

“Staffers for Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) then admitted the homosexual bill
could be attached and voted on as early as Wednesday (tomorrow!)”

End Quote. Link: http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/bl...enator-leahy-1

S. 909 appears to be a follow-on to HR 1913, already passed in the house, which, according to various watch-dog web sites, grants “547 Sexual Deviance’s to be Protected by Federal Marshals.”

Quote:

“Attempts by House Republicans to add amendments stating “pedophilia is not protected as a sexual orientation” were specifically blocked and defeated by House Democrats. Lesbian Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) expressed opposition to excluding pedophiles from the bill, and Democrats voted with her to strike any child-protection amendment. She claimed that pedophiles would not be defined within “sexual orientation,” but wouldn’t put that in writing, and refused to define that phrase “sexual orientation,” which Congressman Steve King (R-IA) said will include all 547 sexual deviances listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-III manual of clinical psychoses, including pedophilia, so now thanks to most Democrats, child molesters will be protected by federal law. In response on the House floor, Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) not only admitted it would, but defended that all 547 psychoses SHOULD be defended by this new law, saying, “This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these ‘Philias’ and fetishes and ‘isms’ that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule.”

End Quote. Link: Senate Bill S.909 Federal government to protect Pedophilia - Radioactive Constitution

The SunSentinal did cover this:

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings reads sex fetishes on House floor

Quote:

“Hastings urged passage of the bill, saying it would help end violence based on prejudice and hate, would encourage people to report hate crimes and would ensure that “all of these -philias and fetishes and -isms that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are.’’

“The bill says that "whoever ... willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerouse(sic) weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person ... ''' etcetera.”

End Quote. Link: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news..._reads_se.html

Here is a link to S. 909, as it appears on open congress.org:

Text of S.909 as Introduced in Senate: Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress

Here is a link to HR 1913, as it appears on open congress.org. Note that it is sponsored by John Conyers.

H.R.1913: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress

According to the official summary of HR 1913, quote:

“Adopts the definition of "hate crime" as set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (i.e., a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person).”

End Quote.

Hmmm…..all of these “philias and fetishes and isms”. Covers a lot of ground there. According to numerous sources, all of the following would be covered under the umbrella of S 909.

* Incest - sex with one's offspring
* Necrophilia - sexual relations with a corpse
* Pedophilia - sex with an underage child
* Zoophilia - bestiality, a crime in numerous states
* Voyeurism - a criminal offense in most states
* Fronteurism - a man rubbing against an unknown woman's buttocks
* Coprophilia - sexual arousal from feces
* Urophilia - sexual arousal from urine

Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/DougG...ian_ministers#

My problems with all of this are numerous, with one primary being the attachment of the bill to the National Defense Authorization Act. If the Democrats are so willing to vote for this measure, why not do it in the open, as a stand-alone bill?

Why do it at all? Crimes of violence are already crimes, and trying to ascertain whether the perpetrator committed the act because they thought their victim might be from this or that category borders on the Orwellian notion of “thought crime” and envisions images of the Thought Police. But this is already been done. Now it appears that some in Congress want to extend this protection to people who should be prosecuted for their acts, and not those who might seek to protect themselves and their children from those same people.

Nothing? On another thread a charge is made that Republicans vote for gang-rape and the responses are seemingly endless, but no comment at all on this information?

Curious.

Maybe nobody cares?

Republican controlled Congress under Bush added ANWR drilling to the budget bill in 2006. This is how they operate. The only difference between your complaint and the ANWR bill is which side is doing it.

This is how we got things like Broccoli subsidies for more funding to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s disgusting that now they are even finding ways to get around the majority vote, while they attach amendments that have nothing to do with the legislation.

No one can read these things beforehand when they are important, either.
These are extreme unconstitutional activities that have become the normal.

__________________
"A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government." Jeffrey T. Kuhner

Senator Leahy called S. 909 "Punish Pastors, Protect Pedophiles?"

__________________
It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.
-- Abraham Lincoln

They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Ben Franklin

That is not a complaint I made. The difference is striking, regardless. Drilling in ANWAR to the budget bill as opposed to this attached to the Defense Authorizaion Act. What is set up by default here is that any republican who votes against the bill due to this attachment can then be charged with voting against the troops, or national security, or whatever.

The republicans consistantly used this tactic on the democrats with Iraq war funding. Do you not recall the outrage? Where were you?

Requiring that an amendment have some relevance to the original bill would go a long ways toward improving how things are done in this country. This way that they can attach anything to any bill is just plain stupid.

Why can no one read them beforehand? It's not that big a bill, length-wise.

In order to include it or append it to another bill, that has to be agreed upon by a vote.

But yes, this is how many things get slipped in.

__________________
- Daisy

If such people were amenable to facts, they would have gotten the point long ago...Whatever it is that is blocking the understanding of the "denialist", it is not access to facts or information. The blockage is most likely emotional, possibly based on fear, and one does not most effectively deal with emotional barriers by using facts as instruments of assault and battery. - Dan Murphy

It could be the misrepresentation of what the bill actually is and the inflammatory language you use to defame it.

__________________
- Daisy

If such people were amenable to facts, they would have gotten the point long ago...Whatever it is that is blocking the understanding of the "denialist", it is not access to facts or information. The blockage is most likely emotional, possibly based on fear, and one does not most effectively deal with emotional barriers by using facts as instruments of assault and battery. - Dan Murphy