From the City Pages:
Bachmann associates pedophiles with gays as protected from hate crimes
By Emily Kaiser in Michele Bachmann
Wednesday, Apr. 29 2009 @ 3:15PM
Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke out against the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 Tuesday night on the House floor. Big surprise, right?
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Bachmann calls the update to the hate crimes laws "unjust" because it denies Americans their First Amendment rights and could be "the very definition of tyranny because it gives government literally the key over deciding what the thoughts of Americans should be."
She then goes on to list pedophiles and gay people on the list of Americans that would be protected as her reasoning to be against it.
Check out her quote, video and more of her comments below. (via MinnIndy)
Her pedophile quote:
One thing that was mentioned by Mr. Gohmert earlier, that was brought up by Mr. King, that apparently people who are practicing pedophiles would be considered protected under this legislation, but not, I understand, veterans, not, I understand, pregnant women, not, I understand, 85-year-old grandmothers would be protected under this law. But who would be protected? A pedophile, someone who considers themselves gay, someone who considers themselves transgender, someone who considers themselves a cross-dresser? That is who is protected.
As Kaiser points out, the proposed law would not protect pedophiles. That's just Bachmann being a panic monger and liar; par for this course. But the news here is that she back to trying to connect the gay, transgendered, and cross-dressers (who are not criminals) to pedophiles (who are.) There is no more connection between the groups of people she smeared and pedophiles, than there is between straights and pedophiles.
It's hate mongering, a flashback to the days of her anti-gay marriage rallies in St. Paul. Back then she tried to boost attendance by going on local radio and telling evangelical listeners that "our children were the prize for the gay community."
The rest of Kaiser's article explains why there's good reason to suppose that Bachmann doesn't understand the hate crimes law. Either that--or she does understand it and she's telling lies about how the law would be applied. |
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