16 July 2009

Fight The Rabid Right - Support Matthew Shepard Act


The rabid right, taking direction from James Dobson (Focus on the Family) has launched a vicious phone campaign targeting senators to oppose the Matthew Shepard Act. Dobson's sick sycophants are calling this much needed piece of legislation the "Pedophile Protection Act", and "utter evil"

The Senate is expected to vote on the act this week and it needs your support this very moment. Simply call the Senate Switchboard at 202-224-3121 before 5:00 pm ET and ask to speak to Senator Cornyn and Bailey-Hutchison and tell whom ever you speak to that you support the bill and have nothing to fear from it.

The official name of the bill is the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act and would expand the 1969 United States Federal hate-crime law so that it would also include biased motivated crimes based on a person's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The act would allow Federal authorities the ability to investigate hate crimes that local law enforcement agencies very often choose not to pursue, allot additional money to help states investigate and prosecute hate crimes, and most importantly, for the first time ever, mandate that the FBI track hate-crimes against transgender and transsexual people, adding to the statistics that are already gathered for hate-crimes against gay and lesbian people.

Under the 1969 Federal hate-crime law, which has already been extended, the classes of actual or perceived race, color, religion and national origin are protected. The current bill is called the Matthew Shepard Act from the name of the young gay man who was lashed to a Wyoming fencepost and beaten to death with the butt of gun because he was a homosexual.

Matthew's family and President Obama have called on Senators to support this bill. Please join with me in adding our voices by making that phone call right now!


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