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Getbig Misc Discussion Boards => Religious Debates & Threads => Topic started by: Colossus_500 on August 03, 2007, 08:07:35 AM
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Pastors attack Cohen on bill
By Bartholomew Sullivan
sullivanb@shns.com (http://sullivanb@shns.com)
August 2, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A group of Memphis pastors is encouraging people to call and write the offices of U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and other supporters of a hate crimes bill they believe restricts their right to preach against homosexuality.
The bill, which has already passed the House, provides federal assistance to local law enforcement to prosecute hate crimes. It is expected to come up for a Senate vote this week.
"It's a very hot potato," said the Rev. Chester Berryhill of the New Philadelphia Baptist Church near Poplar and Mendenhall. "This thing is bigger than the issue of abortion or anything else that's ever come up... You've got both sides on the abortion issue, but on this issue, it's really stirring up the ministers I've been talking to, black and white."
The Rev. LaSimba Gray of the New Sardis Baptist Church on East Holmes said he is a part of the Cohen letter-writing campaign and referred a caller to the Web site for Memphis City Churches (mphscc.org (http://mphscc.org)). There, sample letters asking Cohen to reconsider his vote are provided. One reads in part: "This bill could quite possibly limit my right to share my faith on the subject of homosexuality."
The Web site advises callers to Cohen's office to "expect to be told that you have been misinformed."
The Web page provides links to the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association campaign to kill the bill in the Senate, the Washington-based Family Research Council's analysis of the bill and the Anaheim, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition's examination of the Senate's "tactic to push the homosexual agenda." The Memphis coalition lists an address in the Poplar Plaza shopping center.
Cohen, who said his Washington and Memphis offices have each fielded about 400 calls on the issue after church parking lots were leafleted over the weekend, took to the House floor Wednesday to accuse "a group of right-wing, evangelical Republicans, national in scope," of misleading pastors in his 9th Congressional District with misinformation.
Cohen said the group was seeking to influence both white and African-American preachers "that the bill will somehow quell their First Amendment rights to speak what they think about the Bible and about people's conduct. That's not true whatsoever." Cohen didn't mention homosexuality in the speech. In an interview, he said, "I suspect there's some politics involved at the local level."
The Hate Crimes bill (H.R. 1592) as passed by the House on a 237-180 vote on May 3 contains an amendment that states it will have no effect on free-speech rights, Cohen noted.
"That Crime Bill affects acts of violence, not acts of thought or speech," Cohen said. "It never has in this country's history, and it never will."
Berryhill said the ministers he is talking to simply don't accept Cohen's interpretation.
"Even though he says that, we just don't believe it," he said. "If you get up in a pulpit now, according to the way we understand it, and if you say homosexuality is a sin, you have 'attacked homosexuality.' That's the way the ministers are interpreting this...
"We want absolutely no restrictions on what a preacher can preach in the pulpit."
Gray said Cohen needs to return to Memphis and explain his vote.
"I think it's incumbent on Mr. Cohen to meet with the ministers in his district and share with us his reasons for supporting this legislation," Gray said. "We'd be open to discussing that because we're not going to be silent on this until we are assured that it will not impinge upon our freedom of speech and the use of the pulpit in the proclamation of the gospel."
Cohen said he plans to do one better. He's bringing U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., an ordained Methodist minister, to Memphis to explain why he, too, voted for the bill. African-Americans, who are victims of roughly half of hate crimes, will benefit from the expansion of the jurisdiction and funding provided in it, Cohen said.
Washington correspondent Bartholomew Sullivan can be reached at (202) 408-2726.
Letter to Cohen
The Memphis City Churches Web site (mphscc.org (http://mphscc.org)) provides a sample letter to U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., that reads in part:
"Congressman Cohen, as a Christian, I am dissatisfied with your vote on May 3, 2007, in support of H.R. 1592. This bill will have a devastating effect on the rights and free speech of churches and pastors. We do not believe that homosexuals should have special privileges above other citizens. There are existing laws for anyone who is assaulted in each state... In the future, I pray that you reconsider your vote on these and other such issues and respect the rights of Christians in your state. -- Please provide your name, address, city, state zip code and email address."
Copyright 2007, commercialappeal.com (http://commercialappeal.com) - Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.
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Cohen said the group was seeking to influence both white and African-American preachers "that the bill will somehow quell their First Amendment rights to speak what they think about the Bible and about people's conduct. That's not true whatsoever." Cohen didn't mention homosexuality in the speech. In an interview, he said, "I suspect there's some politics involved at the local level."
The Hate Crimes bill (H.R. 1592) as passed by the House on a 237-180 vote on May 3 contains an amendment that states it will have no effect on free-speech rights, Cohen noted.
"That Crime Bill affects acts of violence, not acts of thought or speech," Cohen said. "It never has in this country's history, and it never will."
Is there anything in the law that says they cannot preach what they think about homosexuality?
Otherwise it's a moot point.
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Is there anything in the law that says they cannot preach what they think about homosexuality?
Otherwise it's a moot point.
On the contrary,bro! This proposed law is quite disputable! The idea behind this law is to punish people for what they think or believe.
To quote Glen Lavy, “Violent crimes should be punished regardless of the characteristics of the victim. ‘Hate crime’ laws are an effort to enforce the orthodoxy of political correctness and to curtail freedom of speech.”
I'm thinking there must be some viable reason that there's strong resistance to such a piece of law. Maybe folks are looking at how the judges in this precious land of ours are using decisions made elsewhere in the world (Canada, Australia, etc), where pastors were charged with "hate speech" just by preaching what's spoken in the Bible with regard to homosexuality.
check this out:
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/HateCrimesReport.pdf (http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/HateCrimesReport.pdf)
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You know we went around and around with the MCA on the political board regarding holding American citizens without charges.
Show me in the law where it says what a preacher says or thinks on the pulpit can be considered a hate crime.
Otherwise we are talking about implied meaning or fear of something that is not real.
It doesn't matter what what Glen Levy says any more than someone on GetBig saying the MCA permits the feds to imprison people without charges or a trial.
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You know we went around and around with the MCA on the political board regarding holding American citizens without charges.
Show me in the law where it says what a preacher says or thinks on the pulpit can be considered a hate crime.
Otherwise we are talking about implied meaning or fear of something that is not real.
It doesn't matter what what Glen Levy says any more than someone on GetBig saying the MCA permits the feds to imprison people without charges or a trial.
In other words, you didn't read it, right? And don't care to for that matter.
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In other words, you didn't read it, right? And don't care to for that matter.
Is the PDF file the actual law? Is there anything in the file that says you can go to jail because of what you say regarding homosexuality?
Let's just stick with the facts here, not the opinions. I for one, would be against this heavily if someone could be put to jail for saying they don't approve of the homosexual life style.
But you haven't given me anything but rhetoric here.
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I guess there isn't anything that says you can be put in jail for saying you disapprove of a homosexual lifestyle.
The only thing i saw was if you commit a violent hate crime the things you said prior to the crime can be used in court.
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I guess there isn't anything that says you can be put in jail for saying you disapprove of a homosexual lifestyle.
The only thing i saw was if you commit a violent hate crime the things you said prior to the crime can be used in court.
Actually the pdf file talks about why this law is so dangerous and sites other cases in other parts of the world and how it points to exactly what you are arguing. But if you're not going to take the time to read it, then let's just stop now. You're asking me to prove something, yet you're "digging in" and not wanting to look at the information I'm giving you. It's not worth it, OzmO.
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Actually the pdf file talks about why this law is so dangerous and sites other cases in other parts of the world and how it points to exactly what you are arguing. But if you're not going to take the time to read it, then let's just stop now. You're asking me to prove something, yet you're "digging in" and not wanting to look at the information I'm giving you. It's not worth it, OzmO.
all I'm asking you to do is site the text that says what you're asserting. If you can't do that what's the point of reading all the rhetoric? Because in the end we are arguing opinions and not fact.