Rep. Brian Bosma led his GOP delegation down a bigoted display of support for the Grand Dragon of Moral Righteousness Eric Miller in a successful effort to kill hate crimes legislation offered in the form of an amendment by Rep. Greg Porter (D) to SB 45. The amendment lost on a 46-50 vote tonight. Bosma ensured that Indiana remains in the embarrassing company of South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas and Wyoming as being the only 5 states in the country without a hate crimes law.
Three Republicans voted for the amendment: Rep. Cleo Duncan, Rep. Amos Thomas and Rep. Jon Elrod. They should be applauded for standing behind the true principles upon which the Republican Party was founded.
Two Democrats skipped the vote, Rep. Jerry Denbo and Rep. Vern Tincher, while five Southern Indiana Democrats joined Bosma's bigots in voting it down. They include: Rep. Steve Stemler (D), Rep. Paul Robertson (D), Rep. Bill Cochran (D), Rep. Dave Cheatham (D) and Rep. Robert Bischoff (D). Rep. Bob Cherry (R) and Rep. Terry Goodin (D) were excused from voting. I should add it is disappointing Speaker Bauer was unable to hold the vote of one of his closest colleagues in the House, Rep. Bill Cochran.
Advance America's Eric Miller served as the KKK's proxy in their absence in drumming up anti-gay bigoted sentiment against the legislation. It's very sad that fully one-half of the Indiana House of Representatives would respond to the downright false information Miller disseminated to the state's social conservatives in his bigoted appeal to kill the legislation. Here's the hall of shame of legislators who would rather cling to our state's bigoted past than move our state forward by sending a message of tolerance.
Bob Behning (R)
Bill Davis (R)
Don Lehe (R)
Milo Smith (R)
Matt Bell (R)
Thomas Dermody (R)
Dan Leonard (R)
Ed Soliday (R)
Robert Bischoff (D)
Dick Dodge (R)
Jack Lutz (R)
Steve Stemler (D)
Bruce Borders (R)
Sean Eberhart (R)
Rich McClain (R)
Marlin Stutzman (R)
Randy Borror (R)
Jeff Espich (R)
Mike Murphy (R)
Jeff Thompson (R)
Brian Bosma (R)
Ralph Foley (R)
Tim Neese (R)
Jerry Torr (R)
Tim Brown (R)
Bill Friend (R)
Cindy Noe (R)
Eric Turner (R)
Jim Buck (R)
David Frizzell (R)
Phyllis Pond (R)
John Ulmer (R)
Larry Buell (R)
Eric Gutwein (R)
Kathy Richardson (R)
Jackie Walorski (R)
Woody Burton (R)
Tim Harris (R)
Michael Ripley (R)
Matt Whetstone (R)
Dave Cheatham (D)
Phil Hinkle (R)
Paul Robertson (D)
Dave Wolkins (R)
Bob Cochran (D)
Thomas Knollman (R)
William Ruppel (R)
Suzanne Crouch (R)
Eric Koch (R)
Tom Saunders (R)
13 comments:
I am so sad tonight. I guess it's too much to request a legislature to do the right thing twice in two weeks. By the way, I understand the Reps and Miller also got their revenge for the SJR7 vote by proposing many anti-abortion amendments last Friday. A slap back at the Progressives.
Any truth to that?
They were filing the anti-abortion amendments before SJR-7 filed. Recall Rep. Walorski filed a controversial anti-abortion amendment to Rep. Porter's original hate crimes bill earlier in the session.
At least they didn't blast out SJR-7. I can somewhat live with that.
The SJR7 walk-on-eggshells isn't over yet. These clowns have more tricks up their sleeves.
The timing just wasn't right for Porter's amendment, sad to say.
As for Rep. Cochran, he's never been brilliant. He's been there for over 25 years, and it's long past time for him to go. Bauer doesn't own him. If you want a hint into who does, tiptoe through his campaign finance and ethics reports. He's been "for sale" to the highest bidder for over two decades.
The Christian Right's zealous opposition to anything that even MENTIONS sexual orientation (unless it is to deny something) causes them to make strategic blunders like this.
Their opposition to hate crimes laws (which also protect them and their religious zealotry!) makes it easier for us to paint them as the mean-spirited homophobic nutjobs that they really are.
If they were to allow hate crimes to pass, they could turn and say "look, we're not homophobic, we have no problems with hate crimes laws. But we are protecting marriage and families and blah blah blah."
While it's still BS, their argument would be much stronger if they demonstrated that they have human (Christian?) compassion, a compassion they only pretend to possess.
Not to worry, they will ALWAYS oppose anything that advances GLBT rights in any way, shape, or form. Let's just hope hate crimes pops up at the same time SJR-7 rears its ugly head again so we can once again demonstrate what they're really all about.
THis year they have made every effort to throw numerous things at the wall in hopes that some would stick. Walorski's fetus thing on the Hate Crimes bill worked.
Let's throw the same effort at them next year.
Bosma makes the GOP look so bad by opposing this. Isn't there anyone in the GOP who can explain to him the harm he is doing to his own party?
Didn't that bill just pass with no one voting no?
By the way, I was shocked that they were able to outlaw smoking across the state WITHOUT A SINGLE HEARING ON IT, but couldn't get Indiana out of the negative state list on Hate Crimes. Let's see what the Senate does to the smoking ban. Probably an easy throw-away vote for the House, since they failed to raise the cigarette taxes to pay for the health plan. Now they can say they did something positive, and have the Senate strip it out.
...well, banning smoking in public places should happen, but only with proper hearings. There is no scientific debate any more about the damage of second-hand smoke. None. Smoke all you want--as long as you contain your smoke in your space.
Welcome to Indiana's legislature. It doesn't have to make sense. And by definition, it certainly doesn't have to be done with much public input.
Harrison Ullman was right.
While I do not claim omniscience, and no one can no for sure what motivated each legislator, it seems that the hate crimes bill had enough votes to pass easily in the house and probably in the senate. What happened was even more disturbing to me than the scenario of right wing bigots following their evil leader. It seems that the hate crimes bill went down, in two stages, simply because of party politics. Republicans who had been persuaded of the merits, and had voted for the bill in committee, shot it down merely to stick a finger in the eye of the democrats.
It is one thing to follow your faith blindly, and another to throw overboard a measure that you know is beneficial for the image and well being of the state and its citizens, merely for party politics.
At the same time, the blast attempt was never intended to succeed. It had no chance. It was purely a fund-raising measure which they will bring up before the next election.
I guess I'll be alone in being happy that we remain in the minority as a state that doesn't try to legislate thought as well as action, nor will we try to give extra protection to certain special classes of people, which in my humble way of thinking surely violates the Constitution.
Here's to backward states!
You're not alone, Scribe... Current laws are for all in the state of Indiana. How about just passing a simple law -- Leave your hands to yourself!
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