Changes

In January of 2007, after the [[Democrat|democratic]] takeover of the United States Congress, Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) introduced the Federal Hate Crime bill H.R. 254([http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:h.r.254:]) or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.  This law would bring a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted or life, if "the acts committed in violation of this paragraph include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill."

In January of 2007, after the [[Democrat|democratic]] takeover of the United States Congress, Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) introduced the Federal Hate Crime bill H.R. 254([http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:h.r.254:]) or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.  This law would bring a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted or life, if "the acts committed in violation of this paragraph include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill."

These penalties come into effect if an "actual or perceived" threat occurs.  Simply put, this creates a a special class of person that gets special rights and privileges.

These penalties come into effect if an "actual or perceived" threat occurs.  Because it is up to the court to determine how the criminal perceived the "race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability, of the victim," it is felt there is the possibility to abuse this law in places where more ordinary harassment or assault charges would suffice.

Two powerful reasons that this bill is dangerous -  

Two powerful reasons that this bill is dangerous -  

1) Someone who murders a gay person could get sentenced to life in prison while a person who murders a grandmother coming back from the store with cat food would serve less time.

1) If two serious assaults were committed against different, but similar, healthy white male young adults, if one were Jewish, the criminal who killed the Jewish person may serve more time.

2) "Actual or percieved" leaves open the possibility that if a homosexual touched you on the shoulder in a sexaul way and you pushed him away roughly, you could spend ten years in prison.

2) "Actual or perceived" may cause problems in cases where minor assault would have resulted in a citation, whereas now it may lead to an arrest and conviction.

This bill is seen by some conservatives a blatant attempt to normalize the homosexual lifestyle.

This bill is seen by some conservatives a blatant attempt to normalize the homosexual lifestyle.