Congress is poised to send an update to the hate-crime laws to the White House, which would classify crimes committed because of someone's sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity a hate crime. Bush has said he's going to veto this law because it would prevent preachers from speaking out against homosexuality.
The lunacy of this statement is just painful for me.
We call it a hate crime when someone kills a black man because he's black, but we clearly allow the KKK to march through a town insulting blacks. Because they have their 1st Amendment rights. We call it a hate crime when a Muslim is beaten in the street because of his religion, or a Sikh is beaten in the street because he is mistaken for a Muslim, and yet we preserve the rights of people to use all manner of hateful speech against Muslims.
To veto this law to preserve someone's "ability to speak out against homosexuality" is really saying "We're going to ignore the fact that there are truly hate-inspired acts against homosexuals, women, and the trans-gender".
Bush is a fool for vetoing this bill.
Worse yet, the message he sends is one that the government is not going to afford the same protections to some people, that it would to others. He's re-affirming a message his party has stated before: Homosexuals, trans-genders, and women are second-class citizens.
I'll say for the record that I'm no fan of Bush. That said, I want to point out that the article you refer to in your post says this:
Now look, Bush is a criminal and not too bright in appearance so we'll just get that out of the way. That said, no president in a decade has ever had the chance to respond to the bill.Why is that? Because until now, the bill couldn't get through Congress to reach the President.
So while I have no affection whatsoever for the President, I want to point out an equal responsibility due Congress that in the past decade such legislation wasn't deemed important enough to pass on to the President in the first place.
Just sayin'....
Rich,
I agree with you that the Congress is guilty in not getting this to the President before now, but my real issue is that Bush claims he can't sign this because it will limit the ability of preachers to speak out against homosexuality.
It's a baseless argument, and I'm ashamed that he would used it to try and defend his veto.