House Proceeding 04-23-09 on Apr 23rd, 2009 :: 0:24:35 to 0:30:40
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0:24:23 to 0:24:43( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: mr. souder from indiana. mr. neugebauer from texas. mr. cao from louisiana. for what purpo does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

0:24:35 to 0:30:40( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Louie Gohmert

0:24:44 to 0:25:05( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. yesterday and today in the full judiciary committee we've been taking up a bill called by most people the hate crimes act. it sounds like somhing that everybody would be for. you know, who favors hate? nobody. perhaps the only kind of hate we should be in favor of is the

0:25:06 to 0:25:28( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: hatred with which we hate hate. but that's not what it's about. it is about creating new law, new crimes that are duplicates of what's in every state in the union. now, there are 45 states already

0:25:29 to 0:25:50( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: have hate crime bills but even there most are unnecessary. the case thaw often hear that is a reason we need hate crimes is the james byrd case where this poor gentleman, african-amecan was drug to death. now, i would be in favor of allowing the victim's family to pick the terrain and the manner of dragging the defendants once

0:25:51 to 0:26:12( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: they're convicted, but that's not allowed. the death penalty amendment was even voted down. so there's no enhancement, nothing that wld affect the poster cases that are constantly raised as a reason to have hate crime -- the hate crime laws. and in fact, when we hear over

0:26:13 to 0:26:34( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: and over there's these epidemics of hate crimes that we have to stop. actually, there were nearly a million assaults in 2007. 242 assaults included some kind of bodily injury in which there was some motive attributed to bias or hatred because of a

0:26:35 to 0:26:57( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: selected group. 242. and, again, there was a killing of a poor young man named nicholas west killed because he was a homosexual. his perpetrators were not charged under a hate crimes law. they were charged under a capital murder law for kidnapping and they've already got the death penalty.

0:26:58 to 0:27:18( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: just like the who worse perpetrators in james byrd's situation. so what is this about? well, perhaps it's about trying to create a special class of protected people who maybe shouldn't have protection. one of the last amendments we made today was going to at least

0:27:19 to 0:27:40( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: in this -- the term sexual orientation is included -- we kept trying to confine it to things tt were not just an aberration. and even the amendment to it least excludes pedophiles from the protected class was voted down on a strict party line. every democrat there voted to

0:27:41 to 0:28:01( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: protect pedophiles and every republicans voted to exclude them at least from the definition of sexual orientation. we were told, well, there is a definition in one of the other laws about sexual orientation. it confines it to heterosexuality. there's no reference to another law.

0:28:02 to 0:28:22( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: so as a former appellate judge i would be left in reviewing the law saying, what is the plain meaning? you can consider other definitions. well, some judge will do the right thing that a judge is supposed to do and say, hmm, sexual orientation means what it says, if that's toward child --

0:28:23 to 0:28:43( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: and the diagnostics statistics manual has about 30 different types of sexual orientation. so -- that includes voyeurism. it includes the pedophilea. it includes things like exhibitionism. it includes corpses.

0:28:44 to 0:29:06( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: but even under this law since exhibitionists are not excluded, then if you -- and i've had women tell me they have had people flash themselves, men flash themselves and they immediately react and hit them with a purse. under that scenario, under this law the exhibitnist committed a misdemeanor and the woman that

0:29:07 to 0:29:28( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: hit him with a purse committed a new federal felony under the hate crimes law. that is absurd. we don't need this law. there is no reason for it. we've even tried to include in there specifically the kinds of chuvens -- churches that were invaded in an attack for supporting the california marriage amendment.

0:29:29 to 0:29:50( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: and that was voted down on a straight party line. there should be no special classes, and the other thing here that will silence christian ministers and eventually rabbis or ahmans from quoting the koran where it condemns sexuality

0:29:51 to 0:30:14( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: because under this bill if a minister, a rabbi, imman quotes from those scriptures and says homo sexuality is an aberration or whatever rd they use, it hurts society d some nut hears them, goes out, commits a crime of violence, then under 18 u.s.c. 2-a they could be charged

0:30:15 to 0:30:27( Edit History Discussion )

Louie Gohmert: -- arrested, charged as a principal. this is a bad bill. and it was a bad day for the law. the speaker pro tempore: thank