Letters to the Editor On Federal Hate Crime Bill

The following two letters were received by the ARRA Blog editors today. They were also sent to the to the Arkansas Democrat Gazatte, We do not know if the "Voices" page editor will be print them -- but we will:

1st Letter to Voices:
San Francisco’s US Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that the terms "natural family," and "family values" could be considered hate speech and can be censored. Lest one think that this could happen only in California, note the recent letters to Voices that slammed columnist Mike Masterson for strongly disagreeing with this court’s opinion. One of them even suggested this paper drop Masterson’s column.

These writers accuse Masterson of being filled with hate for homosexuals in the same breath that they are spewing out venom toward Masterson and using these descriptive terms for him and others: “bigoted Biblical babblings”, ”vile words”, “abomination”,“far right”, “fascist Christians”, “self-righteous”, “wicked”, “pious Pharisee”, “prejudiced”, “Nazis” “gay bashing bullies,” In other words, they passionately hate anyone who disagrees with them, or gets in the way of their agenda. They think they have every right to use names like these for those who disagree with them - but “natural family, and “family values” are hate speech! How illogical can people be!

One letter praises the court for supporting gays. But who is going to support and defend the Christian’s right to proclaim truths that are proclaimed in the Bible, truths which are much more derogatory toward homosexuals than the words censored by the California court? And just what court is going to rule that terms used by these letter writers are “hate speech”

Thanks Masterson, for agreeing with everyone who believes in freedom of speech by disagreeing with the court and for facing this onslaught of hate.
Debbie Pelley, Jonesboro, AR

2nd Letter to Voices:
A hate crime bill by Senator Wilkins was recently defeated in Arkansas. Liberal lawmakers are now pushing the US hate crime bill by John Conyers (H.R. 1592) because of intense political pressure from the homosexual lobby.

Citizens should keep in mind that the number of hate crimes committed in US (FBI report) is very insignificant in comparison to other crimes. In 1997, 2,087 children were killed and 101,000 children sexually abused. In 2005 there were six murders related to hate crimes out of a total of 16,692 murders. "In about half of hate crimes, the victim was threatened verbally or assaulted without either a weapon or an injury being involved," according to FBI reports. In other words, speech was the violent hate crime.

As pointed out in a recent letter to Voices, a three-judge panel of the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco recently ruled the terms “natural family” and “family values” hate speech and could be censored. These extreme views of hate crimes are not limited to California. Arkansan homosexual sympathizers wrote letters to this paper defending the court's decision and railing against Mike Masterson - with a string of detestable terms - for his article in which he disagreed with the court's ruling.

Shouldn't we be putting our emphasis and money (the hate crime bill requires federal assistance and grants) on protecting our innocent children where there is truly an epidemic of crime rather than on a particular class of adults like homosexuals?
Pam Manard, Paragould, AR

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Tags: freedom of speech, Hate Crime Bill, hate speech, homosexual activism, House Judiciary Committee, religious freedom, US Congress To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!