After I read Senator Ted Kennedy's Bill S909, The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, I found some very fishy statements, which got me to wondering "where did they get their information for these statements?" So I called Senator Kennedy's office and after getting no answers, started cross referencing with FBI statistics, Library of Congress, etc. This Bill appears to be filled with bogus statistics and has no basis in fact.
First, I don't hate gay people and no one I know in any of the three states I've lived in hates gay people. In fact I know and am related to gay people. So I started wondering, where are all these dangerous people keeping gays from holding jobs and making them have to move out of state to escape the violence, and chasing them across state lines? Who is targeting them and preventing them from purchasing goods and services, getting jobs or participating in "commercial activity"?
Here are the quotes from the bill in Section 2: (6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:
(A) The movement of members of targeted groups is impeded, and members of such groups are forced to move across State lines to escape the incidence or risk of such violence.
(B) Members of targeted groups are prevented from purchasing goods and services, obtaining or sustaining employment, or participating in other commercial activity.
(C) Perpetrators cross State lines to commit such violence.
This is when I called Senator Kennedy's Judiciary Committee Staff office several times. They have been stonewalling, saying "I don't know" an awful lot and not telling me where the statements are coming from. The first guy said they get their info for Bills from "independent research groups" and FBI, DOJ, Library of Congress. He said I needed to talk to the Judiciary Committee staff who wrote the bill. But they were in a meeting. A few more calls yielded no one answering the phone. Finally, a Judiciary Comm Staff lady made it sound like it would take her just as long to find the info as it would for me to.
So I called Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in DC. They said Kennedy's staff should have all the notes to all their sources at their fingertips, since they wrote the bill. Hmmmmmm.
I also have documents from ABCs 20/20 program November 26, 2004 where Elizabeth Vargas reported that the Matthew Shepard murder was determined by the jury to NOT to be a hate crime.
The perpetrator had been on a five-day meth binge and was jonesing for more meth and tried to rob Matthew and ended up killing him. He then went out and 20 minutes later perpetrated the same crime on another person.
http://newsbusters.org/node/29894/print
Then I looked on the FBI website (www.fbi.gov) under hate crimes, since the Judiciary Committee staffer said they use the FBI for some of the stats for their Bills, and found the latest statistics from 2007 "Incidents and Offenses" to say that law enforcement agencies reported Religious Bias crimes accounted for 1477 offenses, and Sexual Orientation Bias offenses accounted for 1460. They do not define "offense" if it includes hate speech or gay-on-gay violence or what. Violence and offenses seem to mean different things. (I say gay-on-gay violence because in my 20+ years typing emergency room visits for multiple hospitals in Southern California, gays coming in to the ER beaten up are beat up by their boyfriends, not as a result of hate crimes.)
So crimes against gays are LESS in number than crimes against religious people and if you do the math dividing 300 million Americans into 1460 "offenses" it ends up being about 0.00004-ish percent of the population.
The House already voted on this and Senators are voting on this bill any day with bogus information! Those of you who read it and look into it are now armed with sufficient information to call your Senators Monday and say you'd like them to not vote for a bill that is completely unnecessary and filled with BS.
I find it deceptive to be naming this the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill, when Matt was the victim of a meth-junky needing another fix. You'll find all the info you need about the trial in the link, which links to the ABC site. If Republicans pulled this crap, don't you think it would be all over the news?
First, I don't hate gay people and no one I know in any of the three states I've lived in hates gay people. In fact I know and am related to gay people. So I started wondering, where are all these dangerous people keeping gays from holding jobs and making them have to move out of state to escape the violence, and chasing them across state lines? Who is targeting them and preventing them from purchasing goods and services, getting jobs or participating in "commercial activity"?
Here are the quotes from the bill in Section 2: (6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:
(A) The movement of members of targeted groups is impeded, and members of such groups are forced to move across State lines to escape the incidence or risk of such violence.
(B) Members of targeted groups are prevented from purchasing goods and services, obtaining or sustaining employment, or participating in other commercial activity.
(C) Perpetrators cross State lines to commit such violence.
This is when I called Senator Kennedy's Judiciary Committee Staff office several times. They have been stonewalling, saying "I don't know" an awful lot and not telling me where the statements are coming from. The first guy said they get their info for Bills from "independent research groups" and FBI, DOJ, Library of Congress. He said I needed to talk to the Judiciary Committee staff who wrote the bill. But they were in a meeting. A few more calls yielded no one answering the phone. Finally, a Judiciary Comm Staff lady made it sound like it would take her just as long to find the info as it would for me to.
So I called Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in DC. They said Kennedy's staff should have all the notes to all their sources at their fingertips, since they wrote the bill. Hmmmmmm.
I also have documents from ABCs 20/20 program November 26, 2004 where Elizabeth Vargas reported that the Matthew Shepard murder was determined by the jury to NOT to be a hate crime.
The perpetrator had been on a five-day meth binge and was jonesing for more meth and tried to rob Matthew and ended up killing him. He then went out and 20 minutes later perpetrated the same crime on another person.
http://newsbusters.org/node/29894/print
Then I looked on the FBI website (www.fbi.gov) under hate crimes, since the Judiciary Committee staffer said they use the FBI for some of the stats for their Bills, and found the latest statistics from 2007 "Incidents and Offenses" to say that law enforcement agencies reported Religious Bias crimes accounted for 1477 offenses, and Sexual Orientation Bias offenses accounted for 1460. They do not define "offense" if it includes hate speech or gay-on-gay violence or what. Violence and offenses seem to mean different things. (I say gay-on-gay violence because in my 20+ years typing emergency room visits for multiple hospitals in Southern California, gays coming in to the ER beaten up are beat up by their boyfriends, not as a result of hate crimes.)
So crimes against gays are LESS in number than crimes against religious people and if you do the math dividing 300 million Americans into 1460 "offenses" it ends up being about 0.00004-ish percent of the population.
The House already voted on this and Senators are voting on this bill any day with bogus information! Those of you who read it and look into it are now armed with sufficient information to call your Senators Monday and say you'd like them to not vote for a bill that is completely unnecessary and filled with BS.
I find it deceptive to be naming this the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill, when Matt was the victim of a meth-junky needing another fix. You'll find all the info you need about the trial in the link, which links to the ABC site. If Republicans pulled this crap, don't you think it would be all over the news?
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