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An Open Letter Regarding the Current Hate Crimes
Amendment
Oct. 20, 2005
To friends in the United States,
The greatest threat to our civil
liberties and the future liberties of our children is once more upon us.
In September the House of Representatives passed a "hate crimes" bill,
entitled "The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act," as an amendment to
the Child Safety Act (H.R. 3132). It was rushed through the House in 40
minutes in a stealth move by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and includes
among its classifications for special protection "sexual orientation" and
even "gender identity" (i.e. transvestism and transsexualism). Now Senator
Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and others are seeking to get a similar
amendment passed in the Senate. If it passes the Senate, it becomes the
law of the land. Although the Senate Judiciary Committee passed today a
new version of the Child Safety Act without the "hate crimes" amendment
(S. 1086: "The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act," sponsored
by Senator Orrin Hatch [R-Utah]), it appears that Senator Kennedy either
will try to reintroduce the amendment when the legislation comes to the
floor or will add it to another bill such as "The Streamlined Procedures
Act of 2005" (S. 1088). (Source:
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/9229/CFI/family/index.htm)
It is important that you call your U.S.
Senators, and perhaps too the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist,
at the Capitol Hill Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to reject
such a "hate crime" amendment to any bill. If it passes, "sexual
orientation" and "gender identity" will become ensconced into U.S. law as
valid civil rights categories. A hate crime amendment will not make any
safer homosexual and transgendered persons who are the victims of violent
crime. Such crimes are already prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law. However, such a law will establish a legal precedent that leads
inexorably to a range of other "sexual orientation" and "gender identity"
laws. "Heterosexism" will be placed alongside racism and sexism as a
social evil to be stamped out at all costs. A number of tragic results
will follow for those who think that providing cultural incentives for
homosexual practice or transgenderism is a bad thing. Some of these tragic
results will occur in a very short space of time; others will happen
within a few years to a decade.
Here is a sample of twenty-five things
that are likely to happen if "sexual orientation" and "gender identity"
are made specially protected civil rights classifications in the legal code:
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Large fines and eventually jail time for anyone who publicly
speaks out against homosexual activity or transgenderism, even as a
minister, if the state determines that one's message arouses people to
hate homosexual or transgendered persons. This includes messages that
cite Scripture or refer to studies that show higher incidences of
promiscuity and disease among homosexually active men.
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Suspension without pay from one's place of employment
and even outright termination if one declares in any way one's
opposition to homosexual practice or transgenderism, even if, as a
white-collar employee, one makes such a declaration in a "letter to an
editor" outside the domain of the workplace; moreover, one will have to
pay the court costs of his persecutors.
-
Termination from one's job if one does not support
"coming out" celebrations or "gay pride" observances in the workplace,
or if one does not attend mandatory "sensitivity" or "diversity"
training sessions that espouse acceptance of homosexuality.
-
Large fines if one owns a business and does not allow
GLBT ("gay," lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) activists to make use
of the business's services to advance the GLBT agenda (e.g., if a
privately owned print shop refuses to print materials for homosexual
advocacy); moreover, having to pay the court costs of the government
agency that prosecutes the case.
-
Corporations having to institute affirmative-hire
programs for GLBTs as a necessary precaution against potential federal
or civil lawsuits for "sexual orientation" discrimination.
-
Forced indoctrination of children as young as
kindergarten in the public school systems into the acceptability of
homosexual and transgendered behavior and the labeling of their parents'
contrary religious views as "bigotry" and "hatred," through required
readings, "GLBT studies," and mandatory attendance at special diversity
convocations or diversity workshops; also, mandatory "sensitivity
training" for all teachers on the value of sexual orientation diversity.
-
Even parochial schools being required to accept "gay
prom dates" and "gay clubs."
-
Home-schooled children not being allowed to receive
certification if their parents do not teach a curriculum that
incorporates appreciation for "sexual diversity."
-
Loss of federal funds, including hundreds of thousands
of dollars in federal funds for student loans, for any Christian college
or seminary that does not hire homosexually active teachers, or that
forbids students to engage in homosexual practice, or that allows a
teacher at its institution to speak against homosexual practice.
-
Ultimately, the threat of loss of accreditation for
Christian colleges that do not condone homosexual behavior and
transgenderism.
-
Students and employees required to get counseling for
the alleged mental health condition of "homophobia" or risk expulsion.
-
Imposition of national gay marriage by the courts,
through appeal to this newly formed federal civil liberties category of "sexual
orientation."
-
Being forbidden by a judge in a separation or divorce
settlement from ever speaking against homosexual practice to one's child
if one's ex-partner or spouse is openly homosexual.
-
Having one's child (whether a foster child, adopted
child, or, eventually, one's biological child) removed from one's house
if the parent opposes the child's declaration of homosexual identity and
activity.
-
Private civic organizations, as well as Christian camps
and retreat centers, being fined or shut down if they do not allow their
facilities to be used by persons or groups for homosexual activities
(e.g., to host a "wedding" by a homosexual couple or for a meeting of a
"gay choir").
-
Fines for any person responsible for a newspaper ad
critical of homosexual practice or transgenderism, even if the
advertisement merely quotes Scripture; also, fines for the newspaper
that prints it.
-
Fines for any persons with rooms for rent in their home
(e.g. a bed & breakfast) if they refuse to rent to a homosexual couple
intent on having homosexual sex on the premises.
-
Mayors taken to court for refusing to declare Gay Pride
Days in their cities and being forced to declare such celebrations.
-
Loss of charitable status for churches that seek to
influence their members to oppose pro-homosex legislation or that refuse
to marry homosexual persons.
-
Fines and/or loss of license for any broadcasting
corporation that criticizes, or allows its broadcasting facilities to be
used for criticism of, homosexual practice over the airwaves.
-
Adoption and foster agencies forbidden to give any
priority to heterosexual married couples over homosexual couples on the
grounds that such priority would be discriminatory.
-
Refusing the Boy Scouts and Salvation Army the use of
public facilities because of their opposition to homosexual practice and
transgenderism; moreover, censuring professionals who support such
organizations in their private lives (e.g., prohibiting judges from
involvement in any organization that "discriminates" on the basis of
"sexual orientation").
-
Banning from university campuses Christian organizations that disapprove of homosexual
practice (e.g., Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade).
-
Making it illegal for members of mental health
professions to counsel persons against a homosexual life.
-
Eventually special civil rights protection for other
"sexual minorities" who can claim oppression for their "orientation": 'polysexuals'
(those who are in multiple partner unions), participants in adult
consensual incest, and perhaps even 'pedosexuals' (persons sexually
oriented toward young adolescents or children).
Some will claim that this is an
inflammatory list and that these sorts of things can't and won't happen in
the United States. Yet many of these tragic results have already
taken place in Canada, Scandinavia and the lowland European countries, and
even in parts of the United States. For a nice summary of what has already
happened in Canada go to
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0080.html
(written by a persecuted Canadian teacher). For a much more detailed
presentation see Hans C. Clausen, "The 'Privilege of Speech' in a
'Pleasantly Authoritarian Country': How Canada's Judiciary Allowed Laws
Proscribing Discourse Critical of Homosexuality to Trump Free Speech and
Religious Liberty," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 38
(2005): 443-504 (go here
for a summary,
here
for pdf copy, and
here for html version). For references to events in
the United States and other parts of the world see my online articles at
http://www.robgagnon.net/HomosexualAgenda.htm and, for more
documentation,
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchFalseWitness.pdf
(pp. 10-18); also, online articles by Robert Knight
at
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/2575/CFI/papers/index.htm and
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/9069/CFI/papers/index.htm. For a
more detailed presentation of events through 2001-2 see
Alan Sears and
Craig Osten, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to
Religious Freedom Today (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003). For
a critique of hate-crime laws generally see
James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter, Hate Crimes: Criminal
Law and Identity Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
In short, making "sexual
orientation" and "gender identity" specially protected civil rights
classifications of the federal government will, in the end, make
opposition to, and even reservations against, homosexual practice and transgenderism the legal and moral equivalent of virulent racism and
sexism. Those who espouse it will be subject to the same attenuation of
their civil liberties that is currently imposed on racial and sexist
bigots. Think of the kind of future your children will face if you do not
act to stop such legislation. Then act.
Sincerely,
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
For an exchange with a "loving" critic of this
Open Letter click here.
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