Catholics are commanded by our Lord to love one another. Hate, quite obviously, is to be rejected outright by Christians. Yet the “Hate Crimes” bill passed in April by the U.S. House of Representatives, and which has now arrived on the Senate floor, is not about Christian love, but about furthering the militant gay agenda.
UPDATE 7/17/09: The U.S. Senate Approved the”Hate Crimes” amendment to the Defense Budget. Contact your Senators and express your disapproval.
All Catholics support the rule of law. If someone breaks the law, their actions should be judged in a court. If a gay man attacks a heterosexual man, the gay man’s actions must be judged, not his inner thoughts. By the same token, if a heterosexual man attacks a lesbian woman, only his actions can be judged.
'Hate Crime' Laws are part of the gay agenda (photo by Laura Padgett).
As EWTN’s Fr. Mitch Pacwa emphasized in relation to the “Hate Crimes” bill, only God can judge our heart. The justice system in the United States, in contrast, was not created to judge someone’s heart, but their actions. An act of violence committed against any person – regardless of their sexual proclivities – most certainly requires that the accused be judged in a court of law.
The late-great Fr. Richard John Neuhaus penned a fine article on why hate crimes legislation is not appropriate:
“But the very idea of ‘hate crimes’ is highly dubious. Hate is a sin for which people may go to Hell. It is quite another thing to make it a crime for which people should go to jail. The law rightly takes motivation into account; for instance, whether someone is killed by accident or by deliberate intent. In the latter case, malice of some sort is almost always involved, but it is not the malice that makes the killing a crime. A murderer may have nothing personal against someone whom he kills for his money. “
The real purpose of including “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the law is to further legitimize the gay lifestyle in the eyes of Americans, and to continue to pressure Christians to compromise on traditional Christian teaching that homosexual acts are immoral.
Fr. Neuhaus adds:
“The purpose of the gay movement and its advocates, such as the Times, is to criminalize disapproval of homosexual acts, or at least to establish in law that such disapproval is disapproved. Most Americans, it may safely be assumed, disapprove of homosexual acts. It is not within the competence of the state to declare that they are, for that reason, legally suspect.”
Make no mistake, militant gay actives are seeking to subvert the Catholic Church and the legitimacy of God’s revelation to mankind that homosexual acts are opposed to the natural order that God wills. Wisely, instead of attacking the Church directly (although the Connecticut Catholic Church was nakedly attacked), gay activists are using the courts and legal precedent – gay marriage rulings by state supreme courts are a prime example of this tactic.
Catholics, Bible Christians and Americans of good will are encouraged to contact their U.S. Senators and politely express their opposition to adding “sexual orientation and “gender identity” to the law. Find your U.S. Senator and email them today!
The official name of the bill, which you might want to reference in the email is the “The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act.”
The Catholic Church has, and always will emphasize, that homosexual persons are to be treated with respect and love as children of God; from the Catholic Catechism:
2358…”(Homosexual persons) must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
“
CONgress opposite of PROgress !
If “hate bill”-obsessed Congress can’t protect Christians from “gays” as much as it wants to protect “gays” from Christians, will Congress be surprised if it can’t protect itself from most everyone? It’s little wonder that liberals want to make America gun-less! If “hate bills” are forced on captive Americans, they’ll still find ways to sneakily continue to “plant” Biblical messages everywhere. By doing so they’ll hasten God’s judgment on their oppressors as revealed in Proverbs 19:1. (See a related item titled “David Letterman’s Hate, Etc.” on web engines.) Since Congress can’t seem to legislate “morality,” it’s making up for it by legislating “immorality”!
I agree with you on this one. However, now that the bill has been passed, I think social conservatives are in a fluster right now due to their defeat. In this case, the right thing to do would be just to love the sinner and hate the sin, as we always have done and alert other social conservatives to avoid violent tendencies.
You see, the reason why this is happening is that not enough orthodox priests/pastors (depending on the denomination) are preaching about what to do with GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sex, and transgender) people! So, I really think that it has to start at the parish level so that other legislation based on gay hate crimes doesn’t have to come about due to the decrease in violence and the fact that we are opposing such measures!
And what would be a “win” for them would then be an actual “win” for us and the Truth of Jesus Christ.