The U.S. Senate last month unanimously passed a bill that would explicitly make lynching a federal crime. Not everyone, however, is pleased with passage of the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act.Liberty Counsel, an evangelical nonprofit that opposes gay rights, and its chairman, Mat Staver, are taking issue with the bill’s inclusion of LGBTQ people.
The anti-lynching bill, introduced in June by the Senate’s three black members — Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.— applies to lynchings motivated by a victim’s “actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”
In a statement released shortly after the bill’s unanimous Senate passage on Dec. 19, Booker called it “an emotional and historic day.”
“For over a century, members of Congress have attempted to pass some version of a bill that would recognize lynching for what it is: a bias-motivated act of terror. And for more than a century, and more than 200 attempts, this body has failed,” Booker stated. “We have righted that wrong and taken corrective action that recognizes this stain on our country’s history.”
Like the Majority Leader in the Senate I was really surprised it hadn’t been done before. ” “I thought we did that many years ago,” Mr. McConnell said this month in an interview on Sirius XM. “I hadn’t thought about it, I thought that was done back during L.B.J. or some period like that,” he said
But I guess I was wrong – oh well, back to the barricades.
