The US Senate overwhelming passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act by a margin of 63-28, despite objections from many Republicans, including former presidential nominee Senator John McCain. The legislation passed as an amendment to what many consider a must-pass Department of Defense authorization bill.<\/p>\n
Note that tacking on an amendment to an appropriations bill was NOT allowed in the case of Jim DeMint’s Audit the Fed amendment. He was told it was procedurally incorrect<\/a>. <\/p>\n The bill S 909: Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act<\/a> has already cleared the House. <\/p>\n Some feel that this bill would classify certain opinions as ‘hate speech’ and seriously restrict freedom of religious expression. S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in \u201chate speech\u201d transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. See what happened to a group in Maine:<\/p>\n MAINE – The Christian Action Network (CAN), accused of sending out mailings containing an \u201cinflammatory anti-Muslim message”, received notice that they were being fined $4,000 and banned from fundraising in a May 6 letter from Elaine Thibodeau of the State of Maine\u2019s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Enclosed in the letter was a prepared consent agreement for CAN to sign agreeing to all of the state\u2019s allegations, waiving all rights to appeal, and agreeing to pay the $4,000 fine. As part of the consent agreement, CAN is required to agree to all of the state\u2019s allegations, including their assertion that their mailing amounted to hate speech.<\/em> – Pajamas Media – June 25, 2009<\/a><\/p>\n S 909 has passed but there is yet another similar bill known as HR 1913 – Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009<\/a> which has passed the House.<\/p>\n Call your Senators and tell them to vote NO.<\/p>\n Senator Judd Gregg<\/a> The US Senate overwhelming passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act by a margin of 63-28, despite objections from many Republicans, including former presidential nominee Senator John McCain. The legislation passed as an amendment to what many consider a must-pass Department of Defense authorization bill. Note that tacking on an amendment to an appropriations bill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":120,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-122","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/122\/revisions\/515"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSenator Jeanne Shaheen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"