Family Council Opposes Hate Crimes Bill

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, November 16, 2020

Little Rock – On Monday, Arkansas State Senator Jim Hendren (R – Gravette) and State Representative Fred Love (D – Little Rock) filed S.B. 3 to enact hate crimes legislation in Arkansas.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement, saying, “No law has ever stopped hate, and no law ever will. It’s a matter of the heart. The experience of other states proves that hate crimes laws do not work. Over the past few years we’ve seen despicable crimes committed in states that have hate crimes laws. According to the FBI, the states with the most hate crimes all have hate crimes laws. It’s clear that hate crimes laws simply do not work. We all agree something needs to be done to address racism in our state, but passing a hate crimes law isn’t the answer.”

Cox said hate crimes laws promote unequal justice. “Laws like S.B. 3 treat crimes and their victims unequally. Targeting anyone and committing a crime is wrong and currently illegal. When hate crimes laws levy harsher penalties for targeting some people but not others, the punishments can differ even if the crimes are the same. The penalty for assault or murder should be the same no matter the victim’s race, religion, or sexual-orientation.”

Cox said Family Council will oppose S.B. 3. “We have opposed hate crimes laws like S.B. 3 every time they have been proposed at the Arkansas Legislature since the 1990s. This legislation was a bad idea 25 years ago, and it’s still a bad idea today.”

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New Zealand Legalizes Euthanasia

John Stonestreet, Radio Host and President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

New Zealand is the sixth country to legalize euthanasia.

The October referendum, called the “End of Life Choice Act” had the support of both major parties, and received over 65% support from voters.

Kiwis are being promised that proposed “safeguards” will prevent the sort of abuse and spread of the practice that we’ve seen in the Netherlands and Belgium. One journalist assured Al Jazeera that the New Zealand law is “more stringent,” because it is only for “terminally-ill patients” that “they need two doctors to approve” and “there’s a long checklist” of necessary conditions. 

But of course, the Netherlands and Belgian had their own “safeguards” which didn’t hold. They never do. Once a nation accepts that some lives aren’t worth living and that it’s okay for doctors to become killers, it’s impossible to prevent financial incentives from entering consideration or the most vulnerable from being pressured.

To put it another way, not even the best Kiwi intentions is immune to gravity when the slope is this slippery.

Copyright 2020 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

Arkansas A.G. Joins Brief Before U.S. Supreme Court Over Election Problems in PA

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge

Last week Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge joined nine other state Attorneys General in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The amicus brief is part of a lawsuit over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s judgment that allowed ballots in the presidential election to be received by mail three days after Election Day in that state.

The filing argues:

[T]he Pennsylvania Supreme Court overstepped its authority and encroached on the authority of the legislature in ruling that ballots received three days after election can be accepted, including ballots with an illegible postmark or no postmark at all. Second, that voting by mail can create risks of voter fraud, including in Pennsylvania. And lastly, that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision exacerbated these risks of absentee ballot fraud.

The brief goes on to argue,

In a typical Presidential election, it is often hard to predict in advance whether the outcome will be close in any particular State, and whether that State’s decision will affect the outcome of the election. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in this case created a window of time for unscrupulous actors to wait and see until after Election Day whether the outcome would be close enough—both in Pennsylvania, and in the nation as a whole—to make attempting fraud worthwhile.

The brief closes by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s judgment.

Missouri’s attorney general filed the brief. State A.G.s from Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Florida signed it as well.

Read the full amicus brief here.