In USA TODAY online today ... Letter to the Editor from Harry Knox, director - Religion and Faith Program, Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Note the great "talking points" for us to go and do likewise as the Religious Right Ramps up its opposition to the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act working its way through the Senate.Go, Harry!
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Support anti-hate act
The July 11 ad in USA TODAY by the High Impact Leadership Coalition implied that the anti-hate crime law that is before the Senate might impede the rights and freedoms of religious people to speak out against homosexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the legislation carries an explicit protection for religious speech. This law addresses only hate crimes that cause serious physical harm and death.
The people who placed this ad are actively trying to mislead the public. Sadly, I suspect that their motivations are rooted not in their faith, but in deeply held prejudice against gay and lesbian Americans.
Their view certainly does not reflect the views of the more than 1,300 clergy members who has signed a letter urging senators to vote for the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Twenty-six state attorneys general, including 23 from states with anti-hate crimes laws, as well as 290 law enforcement, civil rights, civic and religious organizations, also support it.
This bill would help protect all Americans from the scourge of hate violence and strengthen the safety of all our nation's citizens.
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PS -- Also in USA TODAY:
WASHINGTON — Opposition to the Iraq war has reached a record high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a development likely to complicate President Bush's efforts to hold together Republican support as the Senate begins debate this week on Pentagon priorities.
Bush's approval rating has reached a new low: 29%. More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April.
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Still, 55% say Congress should wait to develop a new policy on Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, delivers a promised assessment in September; 40% say Congress should act now.
So it's pretty clear that a majority of people want to see what happens with the present policy before we come up with a new one (like pulling everyone out, which seems to be what Dean is calling for at least).
And since the June 20th Gallup Poll showed that only about 14% of the populace had confidence in Congress, it's not like everyone's looking to them for leadership.
Per ronf: "So it's pretty clear that a majority of people want to see what happens with the present policy before we come up with a new one"
At the risk of being tagged as a cynical realist, it seems to me that none of the multitudinous *previous* policy "changes" have worked, & that it would appear to take an ENORMOUS optimist to accept the premise that the current "master plan" has anything even *remotely* resembling even a meager chance of success.
When you do the same damn thing over & over & over & over & over & it fails every single time, logic would seem to indicate that a radically different tack is needed, & that does NOT mean "more of the idiotic same...."
Well, as far as I can see there haven't been "multitudinous previous policy changes". What we have here is that the U.S. Army finally decided to stop making the mistake that generals have been making for millenia; they've decided to stop fighting the last war.
What has finally been done is that they have put in charge a general who has some very specific ideas on how to fight an insurgency. Gen. Petraeus some time ago wrote a counter-insurgency manual - he's now been put in a position to see if his ideas will work. One major change he has made has been to take U.S. forces out of a small number of large bases and scatter them in smaller concentrations over a much broader area and get them to make and maintain a great deal more contact with the civil population.
This puts them more at risk, certainly, and casualties might well go up because of this. But it also means that by getting to know the civilian population more and by having better communications, they will get more information from them and be more effective in combatting the insurgents and terrorists.
So far, this is exactly what's being seen. Intelligence from civilians is up, resulting in more success against the bad guys. Now, whether or not this is going to get to the necessary level and be sustainable remains to be seen. But this is hardly "the same damn thing over & over & over & over & over", and anyone who thinks it's failing simply isn't paying attention.
I'm curious as how it is determined that a crime was committed "because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person"?
Is the determination made by the prosecutors? Is the determination reviewed by a jury - in other words, can the jury say "Yes, a crime was committed, but no, it wasn't done because of the [classifications above] of the victim."? And what are the criteria by which that determination is measured?
I'm not much of a fan of hate crimes overall. It seems to me that the crime itself carries a proper punishment (or should), and that whether or not someone was killed because they were gay or because they objected too much to being robbed shouldn't make any difference.
top2, I would suggest that you try to balance out the information you are getting about what's going on in Iraq. A good start would be at Mudville Gazette and Michael Yon. Mudville Gazette is a round-up of various sites, so you can branch off from there.
At the risk of being tagged as a cynical realist, it seems to me that none of the multitudinous *previous* policy "changes" have worked, & that it would appear to take an ENORMOUS optimist to accept the premise that the current "master plan" has anything even *remotely* resembling even a meager chance of success.
Well, then, it seems that 55% of the American public are enormous optimists.
BTW, I've come to consider cynicism as a mask for laziness.
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