Date: 2007-05-03
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker. hate crimes are a serious issue. Thats why 45 out of the 50 States have laws against them. Thats why we have an already existing Federal law where there is a Federal interest involved. Unfortunately. this bill is not necessary or is not drawn appropriately for any specific Federal problem. Some 20 years ago. .I remember supporting the gentleman from Massachusetts against an effort by a Member on my side of the aisle to remove homosexuals from protection under the Hate Crimes Act at the time. that is. the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. That went to the definition. I am concerned about the definition in this bill. I mentioned this during the rule. In~this rule there is no definition of sexual orientation. which becomes a protected class in the sense of enhanced penalty or a new crime for protection for such a victim. We asked whether we would put the definition that is noted in the statute that goes to the sentencing commission in the bill. In fact. many on the committee said -that I had a good idea. Yet. I was denied the opportunity in committee and in the Rules Committee to present that. So. therefore. we have no definition of sexual orientation. I wanted the simple definition thats recognized in the note to the sentencing commission. which limits it to homosexual or heterosexual conduct. So. now we have an undefined term of sexual orientation. Why am I concerned about it? Because I come from the State of California. where. for the past 20 years. we have had a problem dealing with an organization called NAMBLA. North American Man/Boy Love Association. They march in parades. They asserted the right. under the first amendment. to be able to hold their meetings in the local chapter in a library in my district. Thats a sexual orientation. Without limiting the definition. as I asked us to do. we open up the potential for creating a new protected class. I do not understand why the majority refused" to allow us a serious amendmentto just define what this is and get rid of this problem. We were told. look at the statute. It defines it. We found out it didnt. It said it does it by reference. We went to it. The only reference is to a note to the sentencing commission. It is not defined. If this is not taken care of. this bill. I know its not the intent. but it becomes essentially a NAMBLA Protection Act. because it allows that sort of conduct or any other sexual orientation to be considered because there is a lack of definition. Why you didnt allow it. I dont know. But you didnt allow it. On that grounds alone. this bill ought not to go forward. This bill needs to be reviewed. it needs to be amended. it needs to be perfected. It doesnt do what it claims it does. It has an expansion beyond all that -anybody would support. At least in the committee they told me they didnt support it. They said they would take care of it. They didnt take care of it. I asked for a simple amendment in the Rules Committee. We were denied a simple amendment. I dont know why you are doing this. but it is a failure of this bill - and will probably defeat this bill.