Posted by
OS on Thursday, October 04, 2007 4:38:08 PM
Once upon a time, President Bush was loathe to use his veto powers, but I sure am glad to see that he's been willing to use the pen lately--and will likely use it again to toss out the so-called "hate crimes" bill.
It's simply assumed among those who support penalties for "hate crimes" that they are numerous, widespread, and everywhere. Nevermind that FBI statistics show that the number of so-called "hate crimes" that have been reported are actually decreasing and that fewer than 800 out of nearly 1.4 million violent crimes committed in 2004 were allegedly motivated by "hate." (See Alliance Defense Fund attorney Glen Lavy's excellent memo to Congress at http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/HateCrimesReport.pdf. In this memo, Mr. Lavy also points out the all too infrequently mentioned fact that ABC's 20/20 reported information in 2004 demonsrating that the attack on Matthew Shepard, after whom the "hate crimes" bill is named, was not related to his sexual orientation after all.)
Speaking of ADF, Alan Sears has a column on the "hate crimes" bill that was just posted at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AlanSears/2007/10/02/hate_crimes_legislation_a_license_to_kill_the_first_amendment.
The truth is that all violent crimes are "hate" crimes.