Violence Against Women Act Shreds Rights


By Gina Miller
AmericanClarion.com

On Thursday, the House voted to approve the latest incarnation of the Violence Against Women Act. So, it’s a done deal, and it’s not good.

Before the vote, national talk radio host Mark Levin, on Wednesday evening, called for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to step down from the position. Cantor is yet another of the “Republicans” who is fighting against the conservatives in Washington. Levin called for Cantor’s ouster from House leadership after Cantor threatened conservatives who had opposed the new version of the Violence Against Women Act, which now awaits the signature of Barack Obama (or whatever his name is) after House Republicans bowed down in obedience to their debilitating fear of standing on conservative principles.

As reported on Wednesday at National Review Online:

In a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday, Cantor told one GOP member that if they blocked the Senate-passed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) from coming to the floor, they’d cause “civil war” in the ranks.

Cantor’s comment irked some Republican aides, who told National Review Online that such strong language is inappropriate. In recent days, some conservatives have been upset about the Senate’s version of VAWA, saying that parts of the bill are unconstitutional.

The conservatives are right.

Like most bad legislation, the euphemistic name does not tell the true story of the shredding of natural rights and equal protection under the law that lies within. Also, as with most legislation out of Washington, the bill is a mammoth 288 pages of amending, striking, and inserting tedium. But within that tedium are some very bad provisions.

Mark Levin mentioned a column by Daniel Horowitz about this pending legislation. I found the column titled, “Say No to the Violence Against the Constitution Act,” on the Madison Project website. It was written almost a year ago. Mr. Horowitz wrote:

Like every social engineering statist law of the left, this one includes massive mission creep from the original intent. Here are some new previsions in S. 1925:

•The last reauthorization expanded the programs and protections to the elderly and children. This one would expand “coverage” to men, homosexuals, transgendered individuals and prisoners. After all, in a liberal marriage you have to have some way of identifying the husband and the wife. Nonetheless, this will force shelters for battered women to service …well, some other individuals as well.

•It expands the definition of domestic violence to include causing “emotional distress” or using “unpleasant speech.”

•It expands the law’s reach to give tribal Indian authorities jurisdiction over non-Indians accused of domestic violence within the borders of an Indian reservation.

•It would grant more visas to illegal immigrants who claim to be victims of domestic abuse.

There are a number of bad provisions in this bill, but notice the second point about “unpleasant speech” and “emotional distress.” Those are certainly open to interpretation, aren’t they? Those passages are unconstitutional, period.

This is the very thing that leads to what I have warned of before, concerning so-called “hate crimes” laws, which are also unconstitutional, because they blow equal protection under the law out of the water.

Now that this already bad law has been expanded to include homosexuals and other deviants and illegal aliens, along with “unpleasant speech” and causing “emotional distress” being considered forms of domestic violence or “stalking,” we have taken another step toward our free speech rights being squashed.

When unconstitutional “hate crimes” laws have been proposed (and passed), many of us have warned that these would eventually include penalties for speech deemed “offensive,” and of course homosexual advocates ridiculed the warning. The warning is true, and besides whatever else is wrong with this bad law, the latest revision of the Violence Against Everyone and Their Dog Act is one more step toward “hate speech” laws becoming a reality in our nation.

Thanks a lot to the soulless House Republicans (cowed by Eric Cantor) who voted for this trash in an effort to win the favor of the stupid women who voted for Obama.