By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
As the Senate prepares to vote on legislation that would expand the categories of “hate crimes,” a group of civil rights leaders on Tuesday called opponents of the measure “right-wing fundamentalists.”
A coalition of conservative Christians said at a press conference held the same day that the bill is “unjust” and “an attempt to take away the rights of Christians to speak out and express their freedom of speech.”
“Our effort to expand the coverage of the federal hate crimes statute is based on issues of simple fairness, simple justice,” Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), said during a telephone news conference.
“We think that hate crime violence directed at individuals because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, religion or national origin fundamentally violates our understanding of what it means to be protected by the U.S. Constitution,” he stated. “We think that responding to that kind of violence by enacting a statute that seeks to provide states and localities with the resources they need to enforce the law — and when they don’t act, to allow the federal government to step in a limited number of appropriate cases — is really, fundamentally, the right thing to do,” Henderson added.
Participants in the conference call voiced support for the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was introduced on March 20 by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
However, given the full Senate calendar, Henderson urged that the measure be attached to the Department of Defense authorization bill rather than trying to get the Kennedy bill approved separately.
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