Last week, shortly before the House passed the Defense bill with the Hate Crimes legislation, GOP Leader John Boehner launched a vicious attack on the Hate Crimes provision. Boehner said the hate crimes bill offended him. But, it really sounded like gays offend him. He's a blatant homophobe.
CBS News delved deeper into Boehner's position. Turns out, Boehner thinks people are born with a religion, but choose to be gay. Yes. That's how warped the guy is. Sounds like he just really loathes gay Americans:
In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics."
It should be noted that the current law does not include gender, though the expanded legislation would cover gender as well as sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.
"He does not support adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes," Smith continued.
Boehner's position, then, appears to be grounded in the notion that immutable characteristics should be protected under hate crimes laws. And while religion is an immutable characteristic, his office suggests, sexual orientation is not.
Northeastern University professor Jack Levin, who co-authored the first book written about hate crimes, told Hotsheet that "to use immutability as a criterion doesn't make any sense at all."
"Especially if he supports the current stand," Levin continued. "Religion is clearly not ascribed. It's not built into the organism. People can change it at any time and people do."
"It sounds to me as though the criticism is focused on the addition of gays and lesbians to the list of protected categories at the federal level," he said. "That seems to be the problem."
