|
SUMMARY:
The FBI has released its annual report on hate crimes
for 2001, and homosexual activists are again expected
to misuse them to call for a host of new legislation mandating
special status and protection for gays.
Homosexual
groups like the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal
are furiously lobbying to get hate crimes legislation
on the books in various states across America. In their
effort to do this, they often cite statistics they claim
show an epidemic of hate crimes in the country.
Yet
Matt Kaufman, who has reported on hate crime statistics
for Focus on the Family, says although individual cases
are highlighted in the media, overall occurrences of hate
crimes are extremely rare. "For example, there were
almost 16,000 murders in the United States in 2001. Only
10 of those were hate crimes and only one of them was
a hate crime based on homosexuality," Kaufman said.
He
added that the FBI's latest numbers show most of the hate
crimes included were barely crimes at all. "This
year, more than half the hate crimes reported come in
this category called 'intimidation.' (That term) doesn't
exist in most other crime reports and it basically boils
down to somebody says they felt threatened or demeaned,"
Kaufman said. "But it's not a real crime in anywhere
near the sense most of us would think of as a real crime."
Why
is the homosexual lobby so anxious to call these incidents
crimes? Mat Staver, president of the Liberty Counsel,
a religious-liberties legal group, says its part of a
bigger plan. "I think the agenda behind the homosexual
movement ... is to elevate sexual behavior or homosexuality
to a point where any speech to the contrary is considered
a hate crime," Staver said. He predicted they won't
stop until their lifestyle is totally accepted by society.
"The ultimate agenda is to dominate - not to have
tolerance, but to dominate - the worldview, and that worldview
is homosexuality."
FOR
MORE INFORMATION: To read the FBI's 2001 "Hate Crime
Statistics" report, see the Bureau's Web site: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel02/2001hc.htm
(NOTE:
Links to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family
do not necessarily imply an endorsement of all their contents
by Focus on the Family.)
Copyright
(c) 2002, Focus on the Family.
|
