Does the religious right truly believe that hate speech is an integral component of their faith.?

Question

Yesterday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a bill that promises to extend protection from violent or discriminatory acts of hate to gay and lesbian Americans.

In a shocking turn of events, even for this administration, President Bush has threatened to veto this anti-hate bill. With the overwhelming congressional and public support for this legislation, many are asking who the President could possibly be serving with such a commitment; the answer unfortunately is the religious right.

Over the last few months the religious right has waged a deceptive campaign opposing this pro-equality legislation. They have employed a range of excuses; Chuck Colson compared the law to something out of George Orwell's famous novel 19841, Tony Perkins has stated that the legislation is “contrary to our heritage and our values,”2 and just this week James Dobson told listeners of Focus on the Family Radio, “there’s a vote coming up on some insidious legislation in the United States Congress that could silence and punish Christians for their moral beliefs. That means that as a Christian – if you read the Bible a certain way with regard to morality – you may be guilty of committing a ‘thought crime.”3

Such sentiments beg the question: does the religious right truly believe that hate speech is an integral component of their faith?

This notion is preposterous and simply goes to show just how out of touch the religious right is, not only with real American values, but with mainstream Christian values as well.

While most Americans see the religious right’s campaign for what it is -- an attempt to make gay and lesbian Americans second class citizens -- their bigoted views have found audience with at least one man, President Bush.

© 2007 DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution

To the Architect, YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH!

"Pauls words were God's words" MY @SS!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

You KNOW the answer to this already: the "Religious" (read CHRISTIAN) Right hates gays and will do anything to squash their freedom. Tony Perkins: A TOOL! Focus on the FAMILY--all tools! (I stopped spying on those morons FOUR yrs. ago, they were so insanely brainwashed and idiotic!...and again, we KNOW their agenda, the same as ALL the Christian/Right: ELIMINATE OTHER RELIGIONS, LIFESTYLES, POLITICAL BELIEFS and any choice but Bush's suck-up-to-the Fundies agenda! Really, hang out at these websites long enough (like 3 minutes!) and I DEFY you not to vomit in disgust at the flagrant denial of Civil Rights and (supposedly "christian") morality.

Let's face it: the current "administration" is hand-in-glove with the Christian Coalition and their ilk. There is almost NO separation. The sooner we VOTE OUT Bush and company, the sooner we can restore sanity to this nation, in terms of peace, the economy and the restoration of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW!

Answer 2

Although I am not a Bush supporter, nor a right wing Fundamentalist Christian, I am a student of history. Carefully look at Hitler's rise to power and his "Ultimate Solution" of the Jewish "Problem". You will see close parallels between his tactics, and the what is happening with this bill. Unfortunately, people in general and polititions in particular, do not look at the long term future, but only present expedency.

What would happen if the USA went into a deep depression, and a charismatic individual promised to remedy the situation. Could it be that just as Hitler became a dictator, so this individual takes over the elected govenment of the USA. (Such a depression could be closer than we think. Look at the amount that we import from China. In China, there are millions of people who work for less han a dollar a day. Very soon we will not be able to compete. China then becomes the premier nation of the world and the USA goes into a very deep depression, just as Germany did after WWI.)

In order to gain power, this individual will need to find a scape goat, just as Hitler found the European Jews. Could it be that this individual will zero in on the "Religious Right"? This proposed law puts a mark on those that have a certain religious and moral point of view. (Just as Jews were marked in Poland and Germany during the war.) Soon the thought police, (in Germany it was the SS.) knock on the doors of the Religious Right and imprison them for their moral stand. Soon they are moved into Ghettos and finally to places like Auschwitch.

You may say that this could never happen. This law could be the first step.

Keep a close eye on China.

I hate to say it but it could be that you or I may be begging to be on Schindler's List

Answer 3

Hate is written into Christianity.

It's an integral part of their faith to personally judge others and hate what others do.

Count how many times the term "mine enemies" is used in the bible. Traditional religions were created for the purpose of exercising a "God"-given right to oppress, rape, rob and murder other people.

Western religion is hate and intolerance all dressed up in Sunday School finery.

I was a devout Christian convert for a few years. I saw upclose and personal the ugliness underneath all the "God loves you" hugs.

Answer 4

I beg of Christians to remember when the Bible was being used to enforce racism and the same claims were made against these bills then... Also, the bill does not give "stiffer penalties" to those accused... it simply allows them to enter their known prejudice as motive to convict them... These laws already protect every other minority in America so why have gays been left out for so long? Also, 30 republicans passed this bill... so it is a BI-PARTISAN campaign... don't chalk it up to a bunch of liberals... it's Bush who is behaving "radically".

Answer 5

I'm not familiar with this legislation, but the opposition to it may just be that churches could not say anything against gays from the pulpit. They also could not refuse to hire a person for the church who is gay. I don't know if this is true, but maybe. This is a moral issue, whether society believes it or not.

Answer 6

The fact that this act is even controversial amazes me.

Now, to address the answer of sparty -- This act is meant to target those crimes that would not have been committed if there wasn't bigotry involved. Sadly, there are people who wish to harm others simply because of their race or their lifestyle, and that needs to be addressed. It doesn't mean that the victims of other violent crimes are any less important, but it does ensure that predators will prosecuted firmly -- and by predators, I mean people that focus on one group of people and go after them.

No one's free speech is going to be taken away. Amongst themselves, they can feel free to spit this hatred all day long. You can choose to believe anyway that you want to -- but its not right for any of us to harm another person because of those beliefs. I say live and let live.

**edit: Thank you, R. Duke, for posting the exact wording of this act.

Answer 7

I think many of you may be misunderstanding what this bill is about. This bill does not cover hate speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.

Rather, it would give the Justice Department "the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence ... where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability."

In essence, this means that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people would be protected under federal hate crime laws.

Answer 8

Absolutely yes.

We are seeing a revival of the doctrine of Paul of Tarsus of worshipping deliberate ignorance and intolerance.

This was never the faith of Jesus. He was a Nazarene
See:
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/nazarenes/nazarenes_0010.htm

In contrast, Paul of Tarsus and the Sadducees created a counter movement based on a hate of knowledge, on intolerance towards other beliefs that culminated in the wholesale destruction of ancient civilization and the dark ages.
See the Almanac of Evil for the historic and undisputable facts of what the church did
See:
http://one-faith-of-god.org/final_testament/end_of_darkness/evil/evil_0040.htm

Now the religious right want to take us back there. Beware, their faith has nothing to do with the true message of Jesus, but in power, pure and simple.

Answer 9

This IS a bill to legislate how you think. I would ask you to think about what that means, but then it's already clear that you don't care whether or not you are allowed to think for yourself, in fact, it's obvious that you are not aware that you are not thinking for yourself because you have been washed overboard in the current wave of enforced slavery to the values of those who don't care about who they use to further their agenda, whether it be Jews, Blacks, or gays.

Answer 10

Fools, if only they can get along. These fools won't get along with each other to try to fix society's problems. Religious my eyeball, they just want a chance to dislike and loathe. Blast them, if they can't do anything for us to improve life, then who cares about them? To the void with them!