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The last several weeks have been extremely busy here in our Washington, DC office. Our staff has been working overtime and is exhausted from the barrage of anti-Christian, anti-free speech legislation being proposed by radical liberals in Congress.
Last week’s vote in the House to approve a pro-homosexual/crossdresser “hate crimes” bill was a blow to freedom of speech and religion. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 1592) was sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers has called for the impeachment of President Bush. Conyers has aligned himself with the extreme far left of the Democrat Party and is a member of the Progressive Caucus in Congress – a network of more than 50 Representatives who support socialism.
During the debate over passage of H.R. 1592, House Democrat Steny Hoyer (MD) compared opposition to homosexuality and cross-dressing as equal to opposition to slavery during the 19th century! He actually compared religious opposition to these behaviors as “faith-based” bigotry! Watch part of his speech here.
TVC was instrumental in providing Members of Congress with helpful background information on hate crimes and the dangers of H.R. 1592 to free speech and religion. We will be working with key Senators to educate them and their staffers on why hate crime legislation isn’t needed and why it threatens to violate our First Amendment freedoms.
See how your U.S. Representatives voted on this important legislation: http://www.traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/HateCrimesVote.pdf
A companion bill of H.R. 1592 is being pushed by Senator Ted Kennedy. He calls it the “Matthew Shepard Act” bill (S. 1105). Unfortunately, Shepard’s tragic death has been exploited by homosexual activists for political gain ever since.
In fact, Kennedy’s bill is the “mother bill” that has spawned similar legislation in the House. Kennedy has been trying to get a federal hate crimes bill passed for more than a decade. It was not until 2005 that the “gender identity” status was added. This includes cross-dressers, drag queens and transsexuals (known under the umbrella term “transgenders.”
In the past, the Republican-controlled House and Senate blocked Kennedy’s attempts to add homosexuality as a protected federal minority group under federal law.
This time, Democrats control both the House and Senate – and many liberal Republicans are expected to side with Kennedy to pass S. 1105.
We expect a hearing in the Senate on S. 1105 later this month. We’ll keep you informed.
Fortunately, President Bush issued a statement last week promising to veto any hate crimes legislation that reaches his desk. However, it is still important to keep the pressure up on Senators who may be inclined to support S. 1105. Some are supporting it out of ignorance; others know exactly what it will do.
Conservative columnist Cliff Kincaid recently wrote an excellent column on how liberals are targeting conservatives as purveyors of “hate speech” in an effort to shut down opposition to the homosexual agenda and to illegal immigration! One of the key promoters of the suppression of free speech is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists TVC as a “hate group” alongside the KKK and Skinheads!
Kincaid confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Liberals who claim that all they want are laws against “violent” hate crimes are really after “hate speech,” which is any public statement that disagrees with liberalism! They want free speech for themselves, of course, to spread the cancer of liberal thought, but they don’t want free speech for anyone else.
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Lobby Reform Insanity
Liberal special interest groups and their puppets in the House and Senate are also pushing for passage of a so-called lobby reform bill that will allegedly deal with lobbyist corruption.
The liberals, however, are keeping their key bill a secret from anyone but Washington insiders and their special interest puppet masters. How anyone can be expected to analyze or vote on a bill that only a few people have seen, is beyond me.
TVC is part of a coalition of groups in Washington, DC that are involved in fighting any legislation that will restrict the right of the citizens to freely communicate with their government officials.
We fought a major battle in the Senate over S. 1, a bill that contained Section 220. This section would have stifled the constitutional right of citizens to freely petition their government. Fortunately, our pressure in the Senate paid off and Section 220 was removed. Liberal Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has also introduced a bill that will violate the right of citizens to contact their government officials. It’s H.R. 984. We call it the Big Brother Act because it will basically set up a system requiring every Executive Branch official to log every “significant contact” he or she has with citizens.
The latest outrage against grassroots/citizen activism comes from Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA). Meehan has introduced H.R. 2093. This bill allegedly “fixes” problems with lobbying in government. It does no such thing. What it does is create a bureaucratic nightmare for grassroots activists who wish to petition their government. It will likely be introduced as an amendment in committee so it can be attached to another bill.
H.R. 2093 is worse than Section 220 in the Senate bill. It expands the definition of who is a lobbyist – and who must file onerous reports or face huge fines!
H.R. 2093 defines “lobby firm” as any person or entity that is retained by one or more clients to engage in paid communications to influence the general public to lobby Congress—and spends $100,000 or more for such activities in a quarter.
If TVC, for example, uses outside vendors to promote our message or uses the services of a webmaster and our expenses are more than $100,000 in a quarter, those vendors and webmaster must register as lobbyists with the federal government!
This will discourage these vendors or webmaster from doing business with us if they have to file a whole pile of federal reports every quarter or face fines! Our ability to communicate with our grassroots supporters will be limited! And, your influence over government policies will be restricted by H.R. 2093.
H.R. 2093, however, provides huge loopholes for membership organizations such as the liberal AARP or labor unions! If a member group communicates to its list for recruitment purposes, they’re exempt from the reporting requirements!
Huge corporations and billionaire leftists like George Soros can pour millions into membership groups for messages that influence public policy – if the alleged “primary” purpose of those messages is to recruit members!
H.R. 2093 is the perfect legislative scheme to silence real grassroots activism, while protecting liberal special interest organizations such as the AARP or labor unions! These entities can escape reporting requirements because they’re membership organizations and can hide their political goals in “recruitment” direct mail packages!
My friend Mark Fitzgibbons with GrassRootsFreedom is an expert on the dangers of H.R. 2093. He has written: “This bill will harm populist, citizen-critics of Congress, the White House and other power centers in Washington, yet will allow billionaires such as George Soros, corporations, labor unions, and wealthy organizations that actually lobby to continue to spend unlimited, undisclosed and sometimes tax-deductible sums of money on grassroots policy communications.”
NOTE: As went to press on this email, we learned that the bill will be introduced on Monday and on Tuesday they’re going to mark it up in House Judiciary Committee. This gives Republicans and other opponents only 24 hours to review the legislation. This is outrageous! They will then send it to the full House for a vote on May 22st. It is supposedly the Senate version which passed without Section 220 earlier this year, but we can’t be sure. As usual, Democrats are playing dirty with this legislation by refusing to permit Republicans to have access to the text of the bill until the very last minute. They will attempt to add Meehan’s language during the mark up of the bill.
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Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
Another dangerous bill facing us this session is ENDA (H.R. 2015), which was introduced by homosexual activist Barney Frank (D-MA) on April 24.
ENDA will add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to federal law governing how businesses can treat their employees. It affects hiring and firing policies and even how businesses must deal with cross-dressers or transsexuals who wish to use opposite-sex restrooms and shower facilities! “Gender identity” is code for “transgenders” – anyone who suffers from gender confusion. These individuals think they’re the opposite sex. They have a mental condition known as gender dysphoria.
ENDA will impact any business with 15 or more employees. It will forbid companies from “discriminating” against homosexuals, cross-dressers, bisexuals, or individuals undergoing sex change operations, she-males, or anyone who thinks he’s the opposite sex but doesn’t desire a sex change operation!
The implications of ENDA for Christian-run businesses and other facilities such as day care centers are enormous. In addition, facilities that have shower rooms will be impacted by ENDA’s prohibitions against discrimination against transgenders.
TVC will be publishing a detailed legal analysis of ENDA and its impact on our culture within the next few weeks. Our previous report on ENDA is still available on our web site. It contains important background information on the dangers of this bill. We will be updating this soon.
We have no schedule yet on when this bill will be debated or voted on. We are carefully tracking this anti-Christian, pro-homosexual/cross-dresser bill.
Thank You, Mr. President
Last week, President Bush issued two statements that deserve our sincere thanks. First, he issued a statement to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. President Bush told them he would veto any legislation that supported abortion! He said: I will veto any legislation that weakens current Federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage.”
Second, he issued a statement through the Office of Management and Budget stating that he will veto the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. The statement says in part: “H.R. 1592 is unnecessary and constitutionally questionable. … There has been no persuasive demonstration of any need to federalize … violent crime enforcement.”
Please take time to write an email to thank the President for his stand on abortion and on the effort of homosexuals to create minority status under federal law for cross-dressers and homosexual behaviors. Use our background information on H.R. 1592 when you write your letter.
Write your letter to President Bush through
Sincerely,
Andrea Lafferty
Executive Director
Traditional Values Coalition
Source: TradititionalValues.org