Earlier today, the House passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a significant piece of hate crimes legislation by an overwhelming margin (281 Yea, 146 Nay). According to the New York Times, the bill expands the definition of hate crimes to "cover those committed due to the victim's gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability." The legislation -- which was tied to S-1390, a $681 billion measure that authorizes military pay, benefits, and weapons programs for the armed forces -- allocates $5 million per year to the Justice Department to provide assistance to local police enforcement to investigate potential hate crimes in the community.
What really caught my eye, however, in the Times story was this choice little gem from Mike Pence (R-IN) in response to the hate crimes measure:
"It is just simply wrong to use a bill designed to support our troops to reverse the very freedoms for which they fight," he said.
Apparently, Pence got pretty miffed by the Matthew Shepard Act because he fears that the bill could "inhibit freedom of speech and deter religious leaders from discussing their views of moral traditions for fear of being caught up in the law."
So, according to Pence:
- The troops are fighting for the freedom of Americans to commit hate crimes.
- Supporting the hate crimes legislation means you don't support the troops.
- Hate crimes legislation will infringe upon our First Amendment rights.
It's pretty amazing how Republicans can stoop so low as to take a relatively inexpensive provision designed to teach and assist law enforcement officials about identifying and investigating hate crimes, and prop it up as a boogie man that's supposed to threaten or harm the troops. In Pence's world, the police should not be given the opportunity to prevent hate crimes with increased funding for that effort (a whole $5 million per year of it), because the troops are fighting for our freedom. Republican leaders in Congress seriously believe that they can take any piece of progressive legislation (like educating the community about sexism and anti-gay bigotry) and tie it to some mythical threat against the military simply by invoking the old "Democrats are fighting against the troops" meme.
There's also the ridiculous notion that the legislation is somehow going to completely silence freedom of speech and prevent religious leaders opposed to homosexuality from expressing such views. Funny thing about the freedom of speech: This country really does allow you to say almost whatever you want in just about whatever medium you want to say it, but it doesn't mean you should be taken seriously. That's why we allow teabaggers to gather and make signs depicting the President as Adolf Hitler and scream about how he's a baby-killer or a Communist, and why we allow right-wing radio hosts to say outrageous homophobic comments like this and this. In fact, last time I checked, there weren't any police crackdowns on the teabagging crowd just for making racist or homophobic remarks, and they were saying arguably far worse things than the ignorant tripe that Pence spouted in response to this bill. So, color me skeptical over the idea that S-1390 will do anything to infringe upon the First Amendment.
Let's also talk a little bit about the math. S-1390 is a $681 billion defense authorization act for the 2010 fiscal year. The Matthew Shepard Act provides the Justice Department with $5 million a year to assist in investigating hate crimes. By my calculation, that's 0.00073% of the entire bill for 2010. If the legislation really were designed to completely silence anti-gay bigots from voicing their opposition to homosexuality, wouldn't it take a HELL of a lot more than $5 million a year to do it? I mean, Sean Hannity has been spouting homophobic rhetoric (and inviting homophobic guests on his show) for quite some time now, and he rakes in over $20 million a year.
For what it's worth, I believe that assault is assault -- I don't think it's right to add penalties or enforce longer jail sentences for people simply because hate speech may have been involved in the act of a violent crime. But that's not what this bill does. The Matthew Shepard Act is simply a provision that allows the Justice Department to help the police in investigating hate crimes and hopefully prevent them from occurring. It doesn't hinder the troops nor does it seek to punish people from speaking their mind. Not that I expect that Republican leaders who believe that hate speech laws and hate crimes laws are equivalent, and who believe that it was a "hoax" that Matthew Shepard's murder was a hate crime, would ever understand that.