The Drag Queen Posse

When the Matthew Shepard Act passed into law by President Obama, it really wasn’t captured by much media, save for maybe Rachel Maddow. However, the religious right-wingnuts have their mouthpiece, skeletal overlord and undead spokesman: Pat Robertson of the 700 club. Here, in this video, he incorrectly states that the new hate crimes bill infringes upon the rights of Christians by restricting free speech. It does not. The language of the bill is quite clear:

“(1) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN.—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person—

“(2) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, OR DISABILITY.—

“(A) IN GENERAL.—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person—

Watch Robertson complete mangle the language to twist it to the needs of his religious fundamentalist conservative voting bloc (it’s time to put grandpa’ in a home!):

Here is President Obama delivering his own comments at the White House with regard to the hate crimes bill:

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