Your Congressman, Once Again, Votes Against the Wind and Fails to Stop the Extension of Hate Crimes Coverage, and the Texas Republican Party goes EVEN FURTHER....

On September 28, 2004, the House expanded the coverage of Hate Crimes legislation via HR 4200 Roll Call 473 to include sexual orientation, gender, and disability. It passed 213 to 186 with Sam Johnson voting against it. There's a theory going around amongst conservatives that hate crimes laws are a bit like Affirmative Action in that it creates a special protected class with 'extra' protection against crimes due to extra penalties. I'd have to disagree. Affirmative Action was clearly Nixonian politics designed to split blacks and Jewish people politically, and it worked. Its only justification is if you believe that, say, black wages are lower largely due to discrimination and that despite the obvious incentives of capitalist greed to correct the situation, that 'somehow' wages lag behind and that Affirmative Action is needed to counter the racism. One problem with this is the fact that other groups which have faced some pretty obvious and serious discrimination have ended up on top, or at least doing reasonably well. I'd argue that this is because the capitalist system largely works. Now compare that to the LEGAL system, or frankly to ANYTHING heavily involved with government. As Ringo Starr said, everything the government touches turns to crap. So given that governments have a monopoly over the court system for punishing murderers, and given how much conservatives distrust government, you'd think that they'd understand that while the CAPITALIST system might tend not to be guided by racism, GOVERNMENT controlled or regulated entities might be 'all about' racism, sexism, etc. I understand all of that, but somehow conservatives, and even some libertarians, don't get it.

Given that it was the REPUBLICAN Party which GAVE us the 14th Amendment, it's also a bit odd to see certain kinds of alleged constitutionalists hiding behind the 9th and 10th when the 14th is clearly there, and from a Scalian 'originalist' standpoint, was clearly DESIGNED to protect equally such groups as blacks from having their rights ruthlessly taken away, or ignored, by government. In other words, while the 14th may not have any 'rights to privacy' emanating as penumbras from it so as to eliminate state laws concerning everything from abortion to sodomy, allowing murderers to wantonly slaughter blacks and even gays is at least 'in the zone' of its realm of protection. Indeed, since it was passed virtually right after the War Between the States, and yet hate crimes legislation didn't come until over a century later, it's almost as if an important realm of the 14th Amendment is a century overdue - sort of like the Voting Rights Act. We all know the stories about certain groups against which prejudice exists being found hog-tied in the middle of town, with five gun shot wounds and seven knife stab wounds, and the judge's verdict? "Worst case of suicide I ever saw." Sadly, towards the close of the last century, we hear of Matthew Sheperd, a gay man beaten to death in Wyoming for no apparent reason, and even in the 21st Century, we hear about 'truck draggings' of black men. So perhaps given that judges and juries CAN be racist, so that the Federalist system can fail to produce justice, it may sometimes be needed that the Federal government intervene in cases where the state and local governments have failed - rather like these cases where state educational boards take over the schools of financially corrupt towns like Atlantic City, NJ, etc. Sadly, that's why hate crimes legislation evolved - as a last resort.

Sadly, not only is our Congressman opposed to giving states and localities extra incentives to not have any Matthew Sheperd cases but the Texas Republican Party is for eliminating hate crimes legislation entirely. Considering that Lincoln's body was barely cold in the ground for three years before we passed the 14th Amendment, if Republicans aren't gonig to respect the 14th even when it has applicability, why even have a Lincoln Day Dinner? Do we want to be seen as not only racist, xenophobic and homophobic but soft on crime as well?