THE IO—Reverend Ted Pike has been tracking the progress of "hate crimes" bills as they become introduced in Congress for several years. Democrats have made several attempts to get a law passed to provide federal assistance in the prosecution and punishment of those who criminally harm others due to their gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. S 1145, introduced May 5, 2005 by "Sir" Edward Kennedy (D-MA) with 40 co-sponsors, has been sitting in the Judiciary Committee ever since.

The Democrats made another run at passing HR 1592, the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Prevention Act," on May 3, 2007 but it stalled in the Senate due to the bill’s protection of transgendered people. The House struck transgenders from the bill, passed it again and still the bill could not get through the Senate.

With Obama in the White House and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, Rev. Pike is calling for renewed vigilance on this matter. He describes an enhanced hate crime bill, HR 256, or "The David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009." Introduced Jan. 7, 2009, by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, HR 256 proposes, "…uniting federal and local law enforcement into police state jurisdiction to punish violent hate crimes," Rev. Pike explained.

Though hate crimes laws, which translate into "thought crimes" laws and creates a special class of special people who get special treatment under the law, have not succeeded to date, Rev. Pike believes that the Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been working a strategy. The strategy, Rev. Pike claims, was to float the ideas with relatively passive bills, allow them to be defeated and then, when the time is right, pull something truly Orwellian—like the longer version, HR 2662—the House version of S 1145 which has been sitting in Senate committee since 2005.

"The result would be enormously greater jurisdiction," Rev. Pike observed. If S 1145 is suddenly brought out of committee, passed in the Senate, passed in the House as HR 2662 and signed by Obama, "The government could also ‘allocate such sums as are necessary to increase the number of personnel to prevent and respond to alleged violations’ of laws under its new jurisdiction (Sec. 6). ‘Prevention’ of hate crimes can thus capacitate extensive federal ‘anti-bias’ education programs on the state and federal level; it will massively increase ‘the number of personnel’ to create a federal hate crimes enforcement and educational bureaucracy," he explained.

According to Rev. Pike, HR 2662 (S 1145) would empower the Obama White House the power to overturn the verdicts of state hate crime trials and command the states to pass hate crime laws of their own or impose its own hate crimes jurisdiction (Sec. 7). (See Rev. Pike’s detailed analysis of S 1145 at www.truthtellers.org).

Rev. Pike’s concerns that the time is now may be justified. On March 3, 2009, at a breakfast meeting with a group described as "progressive bloggers," Pelosi, said, "The priorities have been Hate Crimes and ENDA [Employment Non-discrimination Act], fully inclusive [means includes transgenders] legislation in those two areas, so we’ll have our strategy work around on how we can get those passed, as well as move forward on, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’"

Pelosi herself mentioned that she is working a "strategy" to pass a hate crimes bill. She may have been lying to her "progressive" audience, but Pelosi’s penchant for pandering to sexual deviants, minorities and illegal aliens to garner support for the passage of socially-divisive, culturally-ruinous and nation-weakening laws has been well-established.