Bryan Fischer
Idaho's Minnick shows left-lean on social issues
By Bryan Fischer
While Idaho's Rep. Mike Simpson voted against the so-called "Hate Crimes Prevention" bill on Wednesday, Idaho's Blue Dog Democrat, Rep. Walt Minnick, voted for this very dangerous and wrongheaded bill, which in time will make principled opposition to the homosexual agenda a criminal offense.
Although Minnick has already started his re-election campaign, and has managed to gain a reputation as a fiscal conservative by voting against both the stimulus bill and the Obama budget, his vote on hate crimes shows how far to the left he leans on social issues.
Everywhere laws that grant special privileges to homosexual and transgendered behavior have gone into effect, they have quickly been used to punish individuals and organizations which believe in the sanctity of marriage. Pastors have been fined and sent to jail, Catholic charities have been forced out of the adoption business, the Boy Scouts have been kicked out of headquarters they built themselves, Christian businessmen have been punished.
"Hate Crimes" laws are really "Thought Crimes" laws, because they punish individuals not for what they did but for what they were thinking when they did it.
All crimes are in fact hate crimes, and as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, the arm of government should extend only to actions and never to opinions. All violent crimes should be punished to the full extent of the law, regardless of the motivation of the perpetrator.
Further, it introduces a caste system into the justice process. It creates two tiers of victims, some of which get legal protections denied to lower caste victims. This is horrendous, since it completely vitiates the time-honored principle of American jurisprudence that we all are equal under the law.
No victim of a violent crime deserves less protection because he does not happen to have a politically favored sexual orientation. Laws that elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to specially protected status bizarrely put government's highest stamp of approval on non-normative sexual behaviors that no healthy society should legitimize. Thus homosexuality and transgenderism are granted higher status in law than normative heterosexuality.
Rep. Minnick, who is banking on developing the public perception that he is conservative on tax and spending policy, is revealing his true colors on social issues with this vote. He has voted to make politically incorrect opinions a crime, has endangered freedom of conscience and religious liberty, and has voted to create a caste system in American where some victims get more legal protection than others.
Whichever conservative challenges Mr. Minnick in 2010 needs to remember this day, and be sure voters do too.
© Bryan Fischer
May 1, 2009
While Idaho's Rep. Mike Simpson voted against the so-called "Hate Crimes Prevention" bill on Wednesday, Idaho's Blue Dog Democrat, Rep. Walt Minnick, voted for this very dangerous and wrongheaded bill, which in time will make principled opposition to the homosexual agenda a criminal offense.
Although Minnick has already started his re-election campaign, and has managed to gain a reputation as a fiscal conservative by voting against both the stimulus bill and the Obama budget, his vote on hate crimes shows how far to the left he leans on social issues.
Everywhere laws that grant special privileges to homosexual and transgendered behavior have gone into effect, they have quickly been used to punish individuals and organizations which believe in the sanctity of marriage. Pastors have been fined and sent to jail, Catholic charities have been forced out of the adoption business, the Boy Scouts have been kicked out of headquarters they built themselves, Christian businessmen have been punished.
"Hate Crimes" laws are really "Thought Crimes" laws, because they punish individuals not for what they did but for what they were thinking when they did it.
All crimes are in fact hate crimes, and as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, the arm of government should extend only to actions and never to opinions. All violent crimes should be punished to the full extent of the law, regardless of the motivation of the perpetrator.
Further, it introduces a caste system into the justice process. It creates two tiers of victims, some of which get legal protections denied to lower caste victims. This is horrendous, since it completely vitiates the time-honored principle of American jurisprudence that we all are equal under the law.
No victim of a violent crime deserves less protection because he does not happen to have a politically favored sexual orientation. Laws that elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to specially protected status bizarrely put government's highest stamp of approval on non-normative sexual behaviors that no healthy society should legitimize. Thus homosexuality and transgenderism are granted higher status in law than normative heterosexuality.
Rep. Minnick, who is banking on developing the public perception that he is conservative on tax and spending policy, is revealing his true colors on social issues with this vote. He has voted to make politically incorrect opinions a crime, has endangered freedom of conscience and religious liberty, and has voted to create a caste system in American where some victims get more legal protection than others.
Whichever conservative challenges Mr. Minnick in 2010 needs to remember this day, and be sure voters do too.
© Bryan Fischer
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