- The federal hate crimes bill was reintroduced Wednesday
by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee. It is now titled The David Ray Hate Crimes
Prevention Act of 2009, H.R. 256, and is a condensed version of the longer
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1592 (which failed
to gain final approval from Congress last year). Jackson-Lee also submitted
a new companion bill, The David Ray Richardson Hate Crimes Prevention Act
of 2009, H.R. 262. This bill will permit federal involvement in states
to "prevent" hate crimes and assist hate crimes victims.
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- Both bills will authorize unprecedented intervention
in states' rights. H.R. 256 is the most dangerous. It will transform America
into a national hate crimes bureaucracy and end free speech, as has happened
in Canada.
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- Hope Emerges!
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- In an extended conversation, Jackson-Lee's hate bill
expert explained these bills to me. To my amazement, he said the Christian/conservative
complaint that hate laws end free speech is so widespread in Congress that
he fears the federal hate bill might not pass! Anticipating that contingency,
he said, the milder H.R. 262 was created to empower the federal government
to enter state hate law jurisdiction in a less threatening way--now described
as "education" and assistance of victims.
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- Of course, even this softer hate bill could support expanded
legislation and legal precedents to ultimately fulfill the original hate
bill's objectives. For this reason, it also must be defeated!
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- Yet this staffer's candid remarks indicate that Congress
has been hearing our protest about the reality of hate law abuse around
the world. This renews our hope to defeat all hate bills once and for all.
Of course, we wouldn't relax near a wounded rattlesnake until its head
was cut off; so we must protest the federal hate bill until it never rears
its ugly head again.
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- Window of Opportunity
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- Congress is presently preoccupied with the economic stimulus
package. But Jackson-Lee's staffer told me that hate bill supporters hope
to move it rapidly through the House and Senate Judiciaries as soon as
early February. He said House Judiciary hearings will be held. If the bill
is allowed to progress to passage by the House and Senate, as it did last
year, probably nothing will keep it from being signed into law by President-elect
Obama, a staunch hate bill supporter.
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- How can lovers of free speech hold back the hate bill
monster? We must repeat the strategy that killed the hate bill in the last
Congress and helped defeat at least five other pieces of anti-Christian,
anti-liberty legislation. [1]
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- Here's how that legislative miracle happened.
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- This time two years ago, Democrat and Republican hate
bill forces dominated Congress as they do today; defeat of the hate bill
seemed impossible. Incredibly, until mid-February, there was virtually
no public recognition by the American religious right that the hate bill
was even in Congress!
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- It was entirely up to our National Prayer Network to
organize opposition. We urged protest through many e-alerts and interviews
on alternative talk radio. I urged our relatively small audience to protest
to those most influential in hate bill passage or rejection: the 40 members
of the House Judiciary Committee. Thousands called, bombarding committee
members for at least three weeks. In response, usually lethargic Republicans
sprang into action. They creatively offered no fewer than 11 amendments
to the hate bill in committee. (In the previous Congress, virtually the
same House Republicans, unmotivated by constituent concern, sat mutely
while the hate bill passed the House in only 45 minutes!)
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- That winter, during and after the hate bill hearings,
feisty Republican opposition was the talk of Washington as embarrassed,
defensive Democrats could only hunker down under compelling objections.
In fact, our phone calls of protest, which remained steady through the
first weeks of February, radiated out through the House, stimulating almost
all Republicans to fight!
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- Awakening the Religious Right
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- In mid-February, five weeks after the hate bill was introduced,
I was finally able to awaken an oblivious Christian/conservative right.
My Feb.14 article, <http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/whoswarning.html>Who's
Warning about the Hate Bill? was sent to Bob Unruh, writer for WorldNetDaily.
In only eight hours he wrote a WND article that galvanized the new right
into explosive action, generating millions of calls opposing the hate bill.
This reverberated to the White House; a usually indifferent Pres. Bush
recognized the groundswell of support and vowed to veto the hate bill if
it passed Congress.
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- Early and vehement opposition thus stimulated an eventual
180 House Republicans to slow down the Democratic agenda. Though the hate
bill passed the House, Democrats (largely cowed by threat of presidential
veto of the hate bill and ENDA) dawdled and lost focus for the first year.
By the second year of the 110th Congress, the presidential race had begun
and Democrats were eager to project "family values." Virtually
all steam was lost for a militantly liberal, pro-homosexual legislative
agenda -- one they thought could easily pass a year earlier.
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- The initial decisive protest by thousands of our audience
in January-February 2007 thus played a primary role in delaying hate bill
passage. Grassroots activists stood in the gap for freedom and held the
lines until massive reinforcements arrived from the religious right.
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- The record of the 110th Congress is unambiguous: Democrats
failed to pass any major federal bias, hate crime, or Christian-persecuting
legislation.
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- We Can Do It Again!
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- To save free speech, we must replicate this strategy.
We must prepare to again call all 40 members of the House Judiciary Committee.
In the next several weeks, some 20 new members will be added to the committee
and their names will be posted at <http://www.truthtellers.org>www.truthtellers.org.
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- Meanwhile, call NOW your members of Congress toll-free
at 1-877-651-6437 or toll 1-202-225-3121. Also call as many other members
of <http://www.truthtellers.org/111thcongress.html>Congress and especially
members of the Senate (names posted at <http://www.truthtellers.org>www.truthtellers.org)
and protest the hate bill. Call each with the familiar message now resounding
through Congress: "Please do not vote for any hate crimes legislation.
Hate laws have taken away free speech in Canada and many European countries!"
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- It is doubtful if we can win in the House. But there
is a good chance, if massive protest continues, that members of the Senate
might defect and vote against the hate bill. As a result of such protest
two years ago, no fewer than four Democrats in the Senate and 11 Democrats
in the House bucked their party and voted against the hate bill. If four
or more Democrats are again persuaded to vote against the hate bill, we
may still narrowly defeat it.
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- Also remember that, above all human strategy, God Almighty
is on our side. If we turn to Him in faith and contrition, He will deliver
America again from the hate bill, as He has done for the past 10 years.
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- Repeatedly, the cause of freedom seemed hopeless. We
were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Yet, at the last moment, God repeatedly
brought hate bill forces into confusion and defeated it. It is a small
thing for Him to save free speech.
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- But it's going to take real effort to pass on to our
children a free America. With God's help, we can do it one more time --
or as many times as we unite faith with action.
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- Endnote:
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- 1. Christian-persecuting or anti-free speech legislation
defeated or delayed in the 110th Congress include the grassroots lobbyist
Sec. 220 of the Lobbyist Reform Act in the Senate; the grassroots lobbyist
Shea-Meehan amendment to the Lobbyist Reform Bill in the House; the Executive
Branch Reform Act (Rep. Henry Waxman's speech control bill in the House);
the Department of Peace Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA);
the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Act; and the federal
hate crimes bill.
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