Land: Homosexuality in hate crimes ‘terrible precedent’
- Jun 15, 2004 - comment
The Senate recently voted to expand hate-crimes legislation to include homosexuality as a protected classification, setting what ERLC President Richard Land called a “terrible precedent.”
In a 65-33 vote June 15, the Senate decided to include “gender, sexual orientation or disability” among categories protected by hate-crimes legislation and to provide federal assistance to state and local officials to investigate and prosecute such crimes. “Sexual orientation” is a classification that includes homosexuality. The classes currently protected by hate-crimes legislation are race, color, religion and national origin.
“Making sexual preference a protected right in any federal legislation will lead to litigation that will be extremely damaging to the freedoms of Americans,” Land said. “The senators who voted for this ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
The concept of hate crimes is flawed, Land said.
“People should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law when they do violent acts, period,” he said. “Whether it’s racially motivated or motivated because of the sexual preference of the person should be irrelevant. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law when they break the law for any reason and when they perpetrate crimes of violence.”
The Senate approved the measure as an amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill for 2005. The House of Representatives approved a Defense authorization bill in May without the hate-crimes proposal. Negotiations will take place to resolve the differences in the two bills and to present a final report to both houses for approval.
Eighteen Republicans joined with 47 Democrats to support the amendment, which is titled the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act. All 33 ‘no’ votes were by Republicans. The roll-call vote, No. 00114, may be accessed on the Internet at www.senate.gov .
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