AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION OF
ACTION ALERT
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Phone: 1.814.271.9078 FAX: 1.814.437-5432
AFA of PA ACTION ALERT
Ted Kennedy Pulls a ‘Fast One’ – Changes Tactic on Hate Crimes Bill
Late Wednesday Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) offered the Hate Crimes bill (S1105) as an amendment to the Defense Reauthorization bill. He may be realizing that S1105 was going to have a hard time to pass as a ‘stand-alone-bill’ and tacking it onto the military reauthorization bill would force President Bush to veto the entire reauthorization act in order to veto the hate crimes component. As of this writing there are 205 amendments to the Defense Reauthorization bill. They will not all be debated, but the Kennedy Amendment most definitely will be! Currently there is not a copy of the amendment online.
Wednesday I was in
I’m not sure we made any head-way, but the Senators knew that Pennsylvanians were ‘in town’ opposing the bill. Senator Casey’s office especially expressed disbelief that we were all from
Unfortunately, even as we were meeting with staffers from Casey’s and Specter’s offices, shenanigans were going on in the United States Senate! Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) were busy filing the hate crimes bill as an amendment to the Defense Reauthorization bill! (In 2005 this is how the U.S. House got it passed! They attached it to the Children Safety Act of 2005!) They are at it again!
So . . . now the Hate Crimes bill is Amendment # 2067 (the Kennedy Amendment) to H.R. 1585 (the Defense Reauthorization Bill). There are fifteen co-sponsors of this amendment of which one is Senator Arlen Specter.
On Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual group in the nation, along with ‘clergy against hate’ ran a full page ad in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. Click here to view the ad.
They also have the signatures of 1,300 clergy members on a letter supporting the hate crimes bill. Following are the
Reverend Arlene Ackerman, PA
Reverend Carol Anthony, PA
Reverend Steve Aschmann, PA
Reverend Karen Battle, PA
Mr. Rocky Bayer, PA
Reverend Greta Browne, PA
Reverend J. Howard Cherry, PA
Reverend Jocelyn Emerson, PA
Reverend Dorothy M. Field, PA
Reverend Jennifer Glass, PA
Reverend Elizabeth Goudy, PA
Mr. Jameson Greene, PA
Reverend
Reverend Gary Hackenberg, PA
Reverend Mark Hayes, PA
Reverend William Hemphill, PA
Reverend Dr. Thomas Herrold, PA
Reverend Ray Holland, PA
Ms. Susan Horwitz, PA
Leader Richard Kiniry, PA
Rabbi Alan LaPayover, PA
Ms. Claire McCrea, PA
Father Joseph Menna, PA
Reverend Nancy Miller, PA
Ms. Karen Moore, PA
The Reverend Jay Newlin, PA
Ms. Sarah Newmark, PA
Sister Ellen Poist, PA
Ms. Patricia Schwartzberg, PA
Reverend John Snyder, PA
Reverend Judy Welles, PA
The Reverend Alice Blair
Pastor Robert Wilson, PA
Mr. D John Woodcock, PA
Reverend Susan Worrell, PA
Rabbi Shawn Zevit, PA
Reverend Stephanie Barnett, PA
Reverend
Reverend Roberta Dunn, PA
Dr. Kathryn Ellis, PA
Reverend Thomas Eoyang, PA
Reverend Bruce Gascoine, PA
Reverend Harriet Kollin, PA
Bishop Edward Lee, PA
Ms. Margaret O. Moyer, PA
Most Reverend Michael J Scalzi, PA
Please consider taking action, we are possibly only hours away from losing our First Amendment and equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment when it comes to addressing homosexuality as sin. See the end of this alert for Talking Points.
ACTION NEEDED:
1.) If freedom of speech and equal protection under the law is important to you, please contact Senator Specter and Senator Casey. Please take time to make two phone calls . . . contact their district office nearest you and their D.C. office. Please call. Too many times e-mails can be easily ignored and deleted. Click here for Senator Specter’s contact information. Click here for Senator Casey’s information. Make sure you leave your name and address when you make the calls.
Message: Vote ‘No’ on Amendment # 2067 –the Kennedy Amendment—to the Defense Reauthorization bill.
2.) Listen to American Family Focus on PA Issues as I interview Peter LaBarbera and Dan Musick of Americans for Truth as they give an eyewitness account of the assault on Christians and the indecency during the
3.) Feel free to forward this alert to other concerned Pennsylvanians. If this alert is being forwarded to you by a friend, please feel free to sign up by sending an e-mail to info@afaofpa.org
4.) Please consider supporting the ongoing work of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania. Make an online donation.
In His service,
Diane Gramley
President
American Family Association of PA
AFA of PA encourages Christians, through education, to become involved in pro-family issues in their community, state and the nation.
Talking Points:
This Hate Crimes bill:
q Federalizes each and every State and local crime
q Threatens religious leaders and groups with criminal prosecution and investigations into a suspect’s thoughts, beliefs and statements.
q Requires criminal investigations to probe if a crime occurred “because of” bias towards a protected group, and opens the door to criminal investigations of a suspect’s philosophical beliefs, politics, biases, religion, activities, and past statements.
q Creates unequal treatment of victims by treating crimes against protected groups more seriously than non-protected groups (e.g. the murder of a homosexual victim will be treated more seriously than a heterosexual victim.)
q Violates the Commerce Clause, the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Amendments.
The Hate Crimes bill is unnecessary: the underlying offense is already fully and aggressively prosecuted in all 50 States. FBI statistics show that the incidence of hate crimes has actually declined over the last ten years.
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