Opposition
James Dobson, founder of the socially conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, opposed the Act, arguing that it would effectively "muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality." However, HR 1592 contains a "Rule of Construction" which specifically provides that "Nothing in this Act...shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."
Senator Jeff Sessions, among other Senators, was concerned that the bill would not protect all individuals equally. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina spoke against the bill, saying that it was unnecessary, that it violated the 14th Amendment, and that it would be a step closer to the prosecution of "thought crimes". Four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote a letter stating their opposition to the bill, citing concerns of double jeopardy.
Read more about this topic: Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“It is human agitation, with all the vulgarity of needs small and great, with its flagrant disgust for the police who repress it, it is the agitation of all men ... that alone determines revolutionary mental forms, in opposition to bourgeois mental forms.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)