A Very Disturbing Attack

Hate crimes, in the simplest of terms, can’t be tolerated. I found out about this incident and found this attack to be particularly disturbing.

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations is calling for state and federal hate crimes charges to be filed against students who allegedly attacked a 16-year-old girl and her 17-year-old brother on a school bus coming from Skyline High School on Tuesday.

The siblings, who are of Iraqi heritage, were allegedly attacked by a group of black teens.

Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR-Michigan, said the teens hit the girl in the face and pulled off her hijab, a head wrap.

There were allegedly slurs that were used in the attack. If that is true then maybe this does rise to the level of a hate crime.

These kinds of attacks have to be punished and strongly so.

For the rest of the story, visit the Detroit News Web site:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090909/METRO/909090444/1361/Group-calls-for-hate-crime-charges-after-teens-attacked

Bill O'Reilly Tries To Justify His Hate Speech

Conservative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly is on Townhall.com trying to justify to readers his hateful speech that helped create a hostile atmosphere surrounding the late Dr. George Tiller. Over and over again, O'Reilly repeated the line "Tiller the baby killer" as he attacked (repeatedly) Dr. Tiller, a man who bravely provided legal abortions to girls and women. Repeating that line is designed to reinforce in listeners and viewers how dangerous O'Reilly truly believed Dr. Tiller was. Read O'Reilly's entry (as much as you can stomach) on Townhall.com and see how he fakes outrage in the beginning of the blog before he spends the rest of it building a case of hate against Dr. George Tiller. It's a hit piece against a dead man. It's a reprehensible blog by O'Reilly who fakes feeling pained by Dr. Tiller's death, builds a case against the dead man and then takes another opportunity to attack liberals.

Townhall.com:
http://townhall.com/columnists/BillOReilly/2009/06/03/the_killing_of_george_tiller

Rep. Steve King, Of Iowa, Continues Whining About Hate Crime Legislation

Think Progress has a story quoting far-right extremist Rep. Steve King, of Iowa, who is crying about the hate crime legislation, known as the Matthew Shepard Act. Why did Iowans put this individual in office? Of course, the same could be said about some of the people in Minnesota who helped get Rep. Michele Bachmann, another right-wing nut, reelected. Check out the Think Progress story to see the fit that some on the far right are throwing and all the fear-mongering they’re creating.

KING: If they’re one of God’s children let’s protect them equally and when you go down the path of special protected status, then you end up with the sacred cows walking around the street that have another extra shield around them that actually would put the victimizer’s focus on someone else. I think it’s unequal protection of the law that results from it.

Rep. King seems to be worried that if penalties are too harsh in protecting some people (such as gays and ethnic minorities) then it will lead to attacks on white people. That seems to be his implication. But, if people are specially targeted then why shouldn’t they be specially protected?

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/king-sacred-cows/

Congresswoman Claims Matthew Shepard Murder Was Not An Anti-Gay Hate Crime

In spite of significance evidence to the contrary, North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx is pushing her strange belief that the 1998 murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming was not an anti-gay hate crime. At issue is a hate crimes bill designed to increase protection for gays and lesbians. Now, there is evidence that includes testimony from one of the perpetrators of this hate crime, that contradict such an opinion, but nonetheless Foxx made the following statement (while, reportedly, Shepard’s mother was in attendance):

“I also would like to point out that there was a bill — the hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. This — the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.

Foxx says, with such definitive force, that it was not only not a hate crime, but that calling it a hate crime is a hoax. Unbelievable. I didn’t really want to believe it until I saw the video. Follow the story on POLITICO to see the evidence that does in fact exist to prove that this was not just some random robbery. All crime must be taken very seriously. However, it is critical that we show that these hate crimes (crimes that show a hateful bias toward a particular group and extends beyond the motive of a specific crime) will not be tolerated in our society.

POLITICO:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Matthew_Shepard_killed_in_nonbias_robbery_Foxx_says.html