Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank so much my colleague, STEVE KING from Iowa--the ``stunning'' STEVE KING of Iowa, as he is known in the mainstream media, so grateful for your advocacy, and also for that of Judge GOHMERT. And Judge GOHMERT, I trust that you're a hanging judge down in the State of Texas.
I just wanted to have a chance to speak just for a few moments on this hate crimes legislation. It truly is momentous, this rule that we will take up tomorrow.
First of all, I just want to say, from my perspective, this appears to me easily to fit the definition of an unjust law. Why do I say that? Because this will bring to Americans more loss of freedom, more loss of rights than we have seen leave in this first 100 days here in Congress because it goes to the very heart of the Bill of Rights. When the Founders passed the Constitution, they would only pass it on one condition, and that is that the Bill of Rights would be passed next.
This is the very first amendment--what many consider the most important amendment--our First Amendment right. And contained in that First Amendment right is the freedom of speech and expression of religious affiliation. And this goes to the heart of taking away American's right to speech and expression and sincerely held religious beliefs.
I feel that this hate crimes legislation in some ways could be considered the very definition of tyranny because it gives government literally the key over deciding what the thoughts of Americans should be. And it says that Americans could only hold certain opinions and not others, and they can only express certain opinions and not others. Otherwise, it would be seen as a criminal act.
And I think back over this last century of world history, and I think of nations where they called certain expressions of speech not only hateful, but criminal. And that is what this bill does, it regulates speech. Government regulates speech. And it just seems that it is one more chink resulting in the loss of American freedom.
This bill, if it passes tomorrow, will have to be considered then a part of President Obama's 100-day legacy. And on his watch, if he chooses to sign this bill--and from all indications it appears he will--this will lay the foundation to further deny Americans First Amendment rights.
I think it also, we could say, denies equal protection under the law. If you have an individual going through a crosswalk and a person is in their car and they hit that person in the crosswalk, it is up to the person who is hit to file the charge if it was a hate crime or not. So if the person is gay, and that is the status that is being protected, and the person driving the car is straight, would it be a hate crime if the person driving the car who is straight hit the person who is gay in the crosswalk? So does it say, then, that that life that was hit in the crosswalk is more valuable because it was a gay life versus if the person who was in the car, who is gay, who hits the person in the crosswalk, who is straight, does that mean that the straight person in the crosswalk doesn't have a cause of action against the person who is gay who is driving that car? It raises the question of whose life is valuable and whose isn't. That is the question that Mr. Gohmert raised earlier.
Who will the government prefer? And who decides who gets protected? Are we protecting people on the basis of their behavioral actions; if they choose to have certain actions that are sexual in a certain manner, they get protected when others don't? Who decides who gets to be the good guy in this situation? Who gets to decide who is the bad guy in this situation?
And I would ask this question, is it a moving target? If we give government this level of authority, then easily we can see that down the road government could amend this hate crimes law to say that now a new behavior will be protected.
One thing that was mentioned by Mr. Gohmert earlier, that was brought up by Mr. King, that apparently people who are practicing pedophiles would be considered protected under this legislation, but not, I understand, veterans, not, I understand, pregnant women, not, I understand, 85-year-old grandmothers would be protected under this law. But who would be protected? A pedophile, someone who considers themselves gay, someone who considers themselves transgender, someone who considers themselves a cross-dresser? That is who is protected.
And yet, think of the impossibility that we are tasking government with. We are asking government to peer into the mind of the individual who perpetrated the crime. Government somehow is so wise, so all knowing that now government can peer into the mind of the individual and can somehow discern if the individual in fact hated the person based upon, potentially, what their sexuality is versus the sexuality of the person who the crime was being perpetrated against. Won't that be a moving target? Depending on what the new behavior of the day--the behavior du jour, so to speak--that government approves or won't approve?
Again, I think this is the very definition of tyranny because government's arbitrary decision will mean that more Americans will lose their First Amendment freedom of speech and expression. And this is something, again, that Mr. Gohmert had alluded to earlier. And that is when we can look, when this hate crime legislation has been put into place across the world, whether it is in Sweden, whether it is in Canada, whether it is in other nations, we can see what other nations have done with this type of legislation and what it has led to, the loss of freedom for individuals, citizens within those countries, and the citizens whose speech were protected.
Then I look at the specter of our own Supreme Court. One of our Justices, [Page: H4909] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said, again, we need to have more Supreme Court Justices in our country look at international laws and the laws of other countries when we define our own. Well, our judges could look at Sweden, they could look at Spain, they could look at Canada. And they could see that pastors and priests who spoke out and who just gave sermons behind their pulpit that promoted what the Bible says about sexuality--and homosexuality in particular--that was construed as a hate crime in Sweden, construed as a hate crime in Canada, in Britain, in Spain. And if that is the case, we will not allow pastors to even have freedom of speech and expression.
As a matter of fact, we saw in Britain where there was a collision course in the EU Constitution between freedom of speech and expression and between exercising religious rights. When that clashed and came into contact with the hate crimes portion of the law internationally, which provision prevailed? They were both contained in the Constitution, hate crimes and religious liberties, hate crimes versus freedom of speech and expression. On every occasion, the law that prevailed was the hate crimes provision. In every case, the provision that lost was the provision that so-called protected a person's right of religious belief and expression. Do we think we will fair any differently here in the United States? I don't think so.
I think the collision course that we are on this evening, Mr. Speaker, is one that probably should frighten Americans almost more than any other. And I say it because there is probably nothing more sacred in our Constitution than that very First Amendment that protects my conscience. And even if my beliefs or your beliefs or the beliefs of people that are listening to us have this debate this evening are antithetical to what all of us believe here this evening--someone might hold some very hateful beliefs, but we are America, shouldn't they be allowed to hold those beliefs? Shouldn't they be allowed to believe, in this country, things that are contrary to what government believes? But that is not going to be allowed anymore. And people's sincerely held religious beliefs can now be considered contrary to public policy. And we can see for the first time in our Nation that people would be disallowed from having their sincerely held religious beliefs.
I think we are seeing a little bit of death today in this Chamber. We are seeing what our Founders bled and died for go away a little bit more in this Chamber tonight. We can hear Patrick Henry. We can hear echos of Jefferson, echos of Madison this evening in this Chamber. What would Daniel Webster say?
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And as much as they would rail against people assaulting other people on the basis of what they believed, certainly they would not elevate to a certain level an extra measure of protection for expression of that speech.
I thank the gentleman, I thank Mr. Gohmert, and I thank the colleagues who are coming behind me because there is something that we should be fighting for. It's fighting for the idea that we are a Nation that is founded under God and that we have our rights emanating from a God who gave us unalienable rights, and we are losing that right tomorrow on this floor if this comes through.
