[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11120-11121]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT OF 2007

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow this body will take up legislation 
that is referred to as hate crime legislation. On its face that sounds 
pretty

[[Page 11121]]

innocuous, something we should all agree on. We are against hate.
  Those of us who believe in the Bible would say that is not something 
that anyone should engage in. Hate. But the fact is there are laws 
across America that deal with crimes. What hate crime legislation does 
is carve out essential exemptions, special punishments for people who 
commit offenses.
  In the past, hate crimes have been limited to felonies that involve 
serious bodily injury, that kind of thing, in most areas. But here for 
the first time, we are not going to enhance punishment, we are not 
going to just only spend money of Federal dollars to help other 
jurisdictions enforce their hate crime legislation. Now we created a 
special Federal crime that will allow the full weight of the Federal 
Government to go after those who, according to the law we will vote on 
tomorrow, in any circumstance, basically, willfully causes bodily 
injury to any person.
  Now, most hate crime laws refer to serious bodily injury, but not in 
this legislation. We refer to bodily injury. We have lowered the bar 
dramatically. There are some jurisdictions that would say bodily injury 
can be temporary, no matter how temporary. It can be a touching, a 
pushing.
  So, in other words, if someone opposed to your position that, 
perhaps, was having gender identity issues, like a transvestite, got 
between you and your office, and there were numbers of them, and you 
tried to get through to your office, then, as has happened in other 
places, he may be inclined now to go to the Federal Government, file a 
criminal complaint for which you could be arrested, and that would be 
bodily injury sufficient to rise to that level.
  Now, some have said, in our committee, that this does not affect any 
speech, this is only actions. But the trouble is existing Federal law, 
under 18 U.S. Code 2(a) of the Federal Criminal Code, and I have taken 
an excerpt from it, says: ``Whoever aids . . . abets, counsels, 
commands, induces or procures'' a crime's commission is punishable as 
if they had committed the crime itself.
  That's referred to in most jurisdictions as the law of principals. 
It's not a conspiracy law, it's a law of principals.
  Therefore, as I ask about a hypothetical in committee, if a minister 
were to preach from the Bible or simply read from the Bible, or a rabbi 
were to read from the Torah or teach from it, or an imam was to read 
from the Koran, indicating that it is wrong to have sexual relations 
outside of the marriage of a man and a woman; if someone heard that and 
went out and committed an offense causing bodily injury, shooting 
someone, and then when they were questioned, they said, well, my 
minister, rabbi or imam said this was wrong, and this is what induced 
me to do this, well, under existing Federal law, when coupled with the 
law the majority wants to pass tomorrow, that minister could be charged 
under the law as a principal, as having shot the victim. That would 
mean that any sermons, any Bible teachings, any Koran or any Torah 
teachings that were perhaps on file at the home, in the office, on the 
hard drive, would then be admissible, because that is evidence that 
this individual taught and preached how wrong this was, which induced 
the individual to commit the crime.
  Now, others say that's ridiculous, and it reminds me a great deal of 
the debate in this House in 1935, 1936, on Social Security, when some 
stood here and said, we don't want Social Security numbers because 
those will one day be utilized as identification numbers. That was 
roundly guffawed, this is ridiculous. This is simply a number on a 
Social Security account. It could never be identification. That's 
ridiculous. Others say, look, we have a provision in here that says 
first amendment speech.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

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