From Human Rights Campaign Backstory
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL, embarrassingly), has introduced three amendments to the Matthew Shepard Act that the Senate tacked on the Defense appropriations bill last week. These amendments are unnecessary and are designed to diminish support for the bill.
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"The first Sessions Amendment would allow the death penalty to be applied in hate crimes cases under some circumstances. This Amendment is unnecessary and is a poison pill designed to kill the bill. The Amendment is being offered by and supported by Senators who oppose the Matthew Shepard Act. It’s ironic that the very Senators who have falsely argued that this bill would put clergy in jail because of their beliefs think that those same clergy should be subject to the death penalty.
"The second Sessions Amendment would place an additional burden on the Justice Department to revise its long established guidelines for hate crimes cases. This Amendment is unnecessary. The Department already contains well-established, clear and precise guidelines to govern cases involving bias-motivated violence that work well.
"Finally, the third Sessions Amendment would provide additional penalties for crimes involving service members or their families. This Amendment is unnecessary. Existing statutes already provide special penalties on attacks against members of the Armed Services and veterans. In addition, the vague language of the Amendment is problematic. The Amendment provides for additional penalties for injuring the property of a serviceman or immediate family member. The scope of “family member” or what constitutes an “injury” to their property is unclear."
Today the Senate may vote on these amendments, as well as the proposed amendment to the appropriations bill to remove the F-22 funding, the clause that will cause the President to veto the bill. We might know the results of these votes later today.
For more info: Matthew Shepard Foundation, HRC Backstory
Comments
What an ass
Thank you Alabama for putting this d-bag in office. You have a lot to be proud of!
Sessions is a total idiot. He mad a fool of himself during Sonia Sotomayor's hearings. Wake up Alabama!!!
Look, it is already a crime to commit violence. Can't you see the Broader Picture of this kind of legislation? It protects everyone except my people, the same ones who are the victims of the VAST MAJORITY of current crimes. If anyone needs laws to protect them it would be whites, gay or otherwise. Gays are being used by race hustlers. Wake up. Your not even getting a reach around.
Good for him. You all just don't get it. This law makes it so that human thought / emotion is now subjected to being criminal. Its not the cause "gay rights," its the freedom to think and feel at stake here. Note: The Post Modern Inquisition has begun. Its being led by the Church of Traitors. Double the crime, double the jeopardy, can't you see? "Hey, pssst... I'll trade you my freedom of thought and feeling to deter crime with a this bill..."
Stupid!
This is a slow creep growing faster against our liberty. Not everyone in the world has to be a nice person with nice thoughts all of the time. In the USA, who is any one of us to judge what another thinks, believes, writes about, reads about, talks about, etc.,.? Oh my, what might powers some have assumed as their own.
Welcome to America: A budding totalitarian state, 1984 style. Good job fellows, thanks for looking out for us, congress. Way to go. :(
It's clear to me that Jeff Sessions is a raving racist and hatemonger. It doesn't surprise me to learn he's doing this. How in the world did he ever get elected? Oh wait, this is Alabama.
Good for Sessions on the amendment -- the Matthew Shepard Act does not belong on a defense spending bill anyway. To the idiots & d-bags above critical about Sessions during the Sotomayor hearings and the amendments - F'off
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