The David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (H.R. 254) or David's Law, was a bill first introduced in the United States House of Representatives on January 7, 2009, by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas. It was designed to reinforce enforcement of hate crimes, and specifically make sexual orientation a protected class alongside race and gender. It’s main purpose is to enhance Federal enforcement of hate crimes. The bill states that existing Federal law was inadequate to address violence motivated by race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim. It calls for the revision of Section 245 of title 18 of the United States Code as well as the addition of a subsection outlining the punishment for anyone found guilty of a hate crime.
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“And by another year,
Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruits and fairer flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,—to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you’re older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.”
—I.F. (Isidor Feinstein)
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“You should try to understand every thing you see and hear; to act and judge for yourselves; to remember you each have a soul of your own to account for; M a mind of your own to improve. When you once get these ideas fixed, and learn to act upon them, no man or set of men, no laws, customs, or combinations of them can seriously oppress you.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)