FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thurs., Nov. 13, 2008CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978
Family values group criticizes Michigan House passage of “hate crime” bill
“Divisive and discriminatory” bill violatesequal justice under law, group says
LANSING, Mich. — A statewide family values group late Thursday criticized the Michigan House of Representatives for approving legislation that would provide more severe prison sentences for crimes against certain individuals based on their membership in special “protected class” categories.
Gary Glenn, Midland, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, labeled the legislation “divisive and discriminatory.”
“All citizens should receive equal protection under the law,” Glenn said, “a principle this legislation clearly violates when it provides that a criminal who attacks a small child or a pregnant mom or a senior citizen should be punished less severely than someone who assaults a grown man, solely because that grown man engages in homosexual activity.”
“Because it segregates victims of crime into specially protected categories based on behavioral characteristics such as homosexual behavior or cross-dressing, then doles out more severe sentences for attacking someone in one of those special categories, it sends the discriminatory message that some individuals are worthy of greater protection by society than others,” Glenn said. “Someone who attacks your 75-year old grandmother might get six months in jail, but under this bill, would get a harsher and longer prison sentence for attacking a 25-year old man just because he engages in homosexual behavior.”
Glenn said his group will urge the state Senate to reject the bill.
“We will ask Michigan families to join us in urging the state Senate to stop this divisive and discriminatory legislation that also threatens religious free speech rights, that has already been used in other states to prosecute citizens merely for publicly expressing their religious conviction that homosexual behavior is wrong,” he said.
Glenn cited the arrest in 2005 of a multi-racial group of Christians — including a 75-year old African-American grandmother — who were arrested in Philadelphia and prosecuted under that state’s “hate crime” law merely for reading Bible verses on a public street during a “gay pride” festival. http://www.stophatecrimesnow.com/
“Consistent with their attempts to silence critics of the homosexual agenda through fear and intimidation tactics such as disrupting church services in Lansing,” he said, “homosexual activists would similarly use this new law if enacted to try to suppress the religious free speech rights of their critics here in Michigan.”
Glenn pointed to a news release earlier this year in which the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force suggested that he and Cardinal Adam Maida — because they publicly supported a Marriage Protection Amendment to the state constitution — should be held responsible as accessories to the falsely alleged beating death of a homosexual man in Detroit. “It is appalling hypocrisy for these forces to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos,” NGLTF said.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,65356.shtml
Detroit police and the Wayne County Coroner’s office later announced there was no evidence of any assault and that the man died of a head injury resulting from a fall caused by arthritic paralysis of his neck.
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