The ND legislative session starts tomorrow, January 4.
First of all, may I ask all of you to cover the lawmakers in your prayers for all of this legislative session? Ask for wisdom for each of them as well as our state administration so that the laws passed are only those that serve the public in righteousness and truth.
URGENT ALERT:
It has already come to our attention that two bills will be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, January 5, at 9:00 a.m. These bills are SB2051 and SB2052, both of these bills would add “hate crimes” and “sexual orientation” to the North Dakota Century Code.
CWA of North Dakota strongly opposes such legislation for the reasons listed below.
ACTION: Please e-mail the following State Senators on the Judiciary Committee BEFORE 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 5 and ask them to OPPOSE SB2051 and SB2052:
Chairman Dave Nething (R) District 12 – dnething@nd.gov
Vice Chairman Curtis Olafson (R) District 10 – colafson@nd.gov
Stanley W. Lyson (R) District 1 – dlyson@nd.gov
Carolyn Nelson (D) District 21 – cnelson@nd.gov
Ron Sorvaag (R) District 45 – rsorvaag@nd.gov
Margareth Sitte (R) District 35 – msitte@nd.gov
http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/62-2011/senate/standing-comm/>Click here for the phone numbers for all of the senators listed above.
What is wrong with this legislation?
The proposed legislation would for the first time allow the state government to prosecute any alleged “hate crime” that occurs regardless of other circumstances, effectively elevating certain groups of people above others in implementing the law. Hate crimes laws grant more government protection to certain classes of people, violating the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. As an example, why does it not list military personnel or veterans? How about obese or under weight people? The list can go on and on. All “hate crimes” laws attempt to read people’s thoughts, motives and attitudes violating Freedom of Speech by silencing and punishing all opposing viewpoints. According to some experts of the law, some jurisdictions have defined as “hate” not just violent physical acts but verbal acts as well; in fact most so-called “hate crimes” are intimidation and name-calling rather than physical acts of violence. The FBI statistics show that there were only 5,190 hate crimes reported in 2005; of these 301 were listed as intimidation; 333 were listed as “assault”; 177 were listed as aggravated assault compared to national statistics that show there were 862,947 aggravated assaults against all persons in the U.S. This is 0.000205 percent of all aggravated assaults. [FBI Crime in the United States 2005, Aggravated Assault] “Hate Crimes” and “sexual orientation” laws infringe upon religious liberty in that a Biblical world-view that finds homosexual acts immoral could be prosecutable if these laws are passed. Hate crimes laws, some feel, could lay the groundwork for investigating, persecuting and prosecuting pastors, business owners or anyone else who hold traditional views of human sexuality. Who will determine what constitutes a hate crime? This language added to the law is ambiguous at best. A crime is a crimethere should be no elite groups, creating a hierarchy of victims. All crimes should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and the punishment should be applied equally.