Week Ending May 23, 2003
Religious Freedom Coalition
May 23, 2003 9:48AM EST
CONGRESS IN SESSION
THE HOUSE
Last week I reported that Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) had hoped to move the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA) and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (PBA) to the floor of the House for a vote before the Memorial Day recess. That would mean a vote prior to the end of business today. By mid-week the work on the President's tax cut bill had slowed down both the House and the Senate. On Wednesday of this week I spoke to Congressman Blunt and he informed me that the UVVA and PBA will definitely be on the floor and voted on before the July 4th break.
I also mentioned last week that the House version of the bill had been renamed the Laci and Conner Peterson Act at the request of the family of these murder victims. Oddly the left leaning media has attacked Congresswoman Melissa Hart and other conservative members of Congress for "using" the Petersons to promote an anti-abortion agenda. These media outlets and many left leaning columnists refuse to admit the name change of the bill was done at the request of the Peterson family. The family and friends of Laci Peterson maintain an Internet site dedicated to her.
Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO) now has 190 co-sponosrs to his Pledge Protection Act of 2003. This is a very simple one line judicial jurisdiction act prohibiting any federal court, other than the Supreme Court, from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge. This is a very common procedure and has been done numerous times just in the past few years. Often the Congress passes legislation with a caveat stating that there can be no Federal court review of it. There is such language in the Patriot Act as well as the American Service Members Act and the Aviation Security Act. Both the House majority Leader and the Majority Whip and all Assistant Whips have cosponsored the Pledge Protection Act of 2003. Oddly enough, however, the bill seems to be stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. It seems that the new chairman of that committee, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) is just not interested in moving it forward and has scheduled no hearings. If you have an interest in the bill you may want to contact Congressman Sensenbrenner.
LATE BREAKING HOUSE NEWS:
Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) has introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment (HJ 56). This Constitutional Amendment states that a marriage shall be only between one man and one woman. The Amendment is needed because state and Federal courts are on the verge of legalizing homosexual marriages. Thirty-seven state have passed laws or amended their constitutions to prohibit same sex marriages but homosexuals, who want to destroy the institution of marriage, have filed numerous lawsuits against those laws. The text of the FMA reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."THE SENATE
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has taken up the cause of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in the Senate. This is the Senator's first term. Previously as a member of the House he introduced this act twice and both times led it to a victory. On both occasions the bill then went to the Senate where it was not voted on at all. Now that he is in the Senate he has vowed to pass the bill there as well. This week Laci Peterson's mother visited him in Washington and asked him to change the name of the Senate version of UVVA to the Laci and Conner Peterson Act. The Senator is passionate about UVVA and will pursue its passage. There are, however, dark clouds ahead in the Senate with regard to UVVA. Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton plan to add their stalled "Hate Crimes" legislation to the UVVA in the Senate. "Hate Crimes" is a thought crimes bill dreamed up by the liberal left. The bill increases punishment for crimes depending upon what is in the mind of the perpetrator at the time with regard to homosexuals. Thus if a criminal beats up and robs a homosexual he may get say five years in jail, but if he beats him up and robs him and also calls him a queer, he gets ten years in jail. In other words Kennedy and Clinton want to mandate longer terms in jail for those who are thinking or saying certain things. Because certain verses of the Bible condemn homosexuality, reciting a Bible verse could be construed as a hate crime. (This is already true in Canada.) When UVVA comes up in the Senate the biggest single battle will be to stop the addition of "hate crimes." There are believed to be 57 votes for this thought crimes legislation in the Senate including 49 Democrats and eight Republicans.
THE PRESIDENCY
Speaking of homosexuals, I was stunned to read in a Family Research Council publication that the new head of the election committee for President George W. Bush had called Christian conservatives misinformed and misled about "gays". I searched for the alleged quote by Marc Racicot and found it in a homosexual publication, The Advocate. In the article The Advocate stated:
Indeed, Santorum's comments were made public the day after the president of the Family Research Council, a religious right group with considerable clout among Republicans, attacked Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, for holding "secret meetings with the homosexual lobby."
Racicot, a moderate, had met March 7 with leaders of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C., gay rights group. Asked why religious conservative leaders regularly inveigh against gays and lesbians, Racicot told HRC, "They probably don't know gay people. People fear to educate them. [They have] their own fear and lots of misinformation and disinformation, which some do for political expediency."
Racicot, who has considerable influence over the party's fund-raising apparatus at the RNC, may now want to have a similar chat with Rick Santorum.
Did I miss something or did the man who is about to head up the President's reelection committee call all of us social conservatives uninformed and ignorant? Is Racicot forgetting that these "misinformed" social conservatives voted overwhelmingly for the President in the last election? I just don't see us social conservatives in a good working relationship with Marc Racicot during the election cycle, and this could be bad news for President Bush.
INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued its annual report and as a surprise to no one, Saudi Arabia was listed as the single worst offender of religious rights. The report summarized our allie's behavior as follows:
Saudi Arabia. Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia. The Government requires all citizens to be Muslim and prohibits all public manifestations of non-Muslim religions. Islamic practice generally is limited to that of a school of the Sunni branch of Islam as interpreted by Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, an 18th-century Arab religious reformer, and practices contrary to this interpretation are suppressed. Members of the Shi'a minority continue to face institutionalized political and economic discrimination, including restrictions on the practice of their faith, and many Shi'a sheikhs remain in detention.
The Government has stated publicly that it recognizes the right of non-Muslims to worship in private; however, the distinction between public and private worship is not defined clearly, in effect forcing most non-Muslims to worship in a manner such as to avoid discovery. Several Christians were detained for non-Muslim worship and almost always deported after sometimes lengthy periods of arrest, during which some received lashings. The Government refused to permit clergy members to enter the country to conduct non-Muslim religious services, placing groups such as Catholics and Orthodox Christians who must have a priest on a regular basis to practice their faith at a particular disadvantage. Customs officials confiscated or censored materials considered offensive, including Bibles and religious videotapes. In certain areas, both the Mutawwa'in (religious police) and religious vigilantes harassed, assaulted, and detained citizens and foreigners. The complete report can be viewed online.
TV AND HITLER
CBS is airing a mini-series on Adolph Hitler. CBS did show the beer hall the young Hitler organized his early Nazi movement from; however, they failed to point out that it was a "gay leather bar." Much of the backbone of the early Nazi movement in Germany was formed around hard core homosexuals who were close to Hitler. Although Hitler was forced to crack down on the pedophiles in the Nazi movement in 1934 he kept homosexuals close to him and in leadership positions up to the day he committed suicide. The National German Socialist Party (Nazi) was grounded in the occult. The SS killers did not use a cross as their insignia, but rather a skull. When I was in high school this was common knowledge and in textbooks. Today's textbooks have been cleansed of the anti-Christian, pro-homosexual, pro-occult nature of the Nazi Party. The CBS special did not do the subject justice by removing the information about Hitler and his homosexual and occult leanings. The Pink Swastika which details the occult and homosexual activities inside the Nazi party is available at our Internet store. Because I believe The Pink Swastika is a book that should be read and then placed in public libraries I have ordered that the price be reduced from its $16.95 retail to just $13.95. This is the new fourth edition not available at a discount at other sites!
William J. Murray, Chairman
Religious Freedom Coalition, Washington, DC
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