The Bush Administration's Tortured Logic Indicates the Entire Federal Law Should be Thrown Out
BBSNews 2007-05-03 -- President Bush issued a statement today that his advisers, code for right-wing Christian conservatives, will recommend that he veto an addition to federal law of further protection for those targeted by hate crimes.
As we reported yesterday, the extreme right-wing group "Concerned Women for America" (CWA) begged president Bush to veto this much needed legislation, and he apparently has caved in, wielding his veto for the third time in his entire administration.
The first veto was against science, the veto of stem cell legislation that was passed by a bipartisan Congress before the Democrats routed the Republicans in the 2006 midterms. The second was this week's veto of sensible legislation to start getting US troops out of Iraq thereby preventing them from refereeing a sectarian civil war in that country.
And now the third promised veto that defies logic as much as his others that ignored science and common-sense.
CWA is salivating at the prospect of more Matthew Shepards, gleefully gloating:
"'We thank President Bush for honoring our nation's constitutional tradition of equal protection under the law,' said Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues at Concerned Women for America."
The fact is, CWA was dishonest in their entire approach to this bill as we pointed out yesterday.
In a statement CWA referred to today, president Bush will veto this legislation based upon the following bait and switch logic:
"H.R. 1592 prohibits willfully causing or attempting to cause bodily injury to any person based upon the victim's race, color, religion, or national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The Administration notes that the bill would leave other classes (such as the elderly, members of the military, police officers, and victims of prior crimes) without similar special status. The Administration believes that all violent crimes are unacceptable, regardless of the victims, and should be punished firmly."
As we pointed out yesterday, "Two identical bipartisan pieces of legislation are making their way through both houses of the US Congress, in the Senate it is the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and in the House it is H.R. 1592 that would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to federal law that already exists for protection in the case of race, color, religion or national origin."
The president doesn't point out that there already exists "special status" for hate crimes motivated by a persons religion, among other groups.
After all, so goes the logic of "all violent crimes are unacceptable, regardless of the victims, and should be punished firmly." Assault is a crime, murder is a crime, so religion and the other groups that already have this "special status" should be stripped of such protections. The CWA and now the president has come out against such protections, even the ones that extend towards religion.
Progressives should toss this ball back into CWA's court and tell them they will go ahead agree with their position and remove religion as a special class protected from hate crimes as it obviously, using their logic, is completely unnecessary.
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