May 8, 2001

Eagle Eye on Austin

**SPECIAL REPORT**

STRETCH RUN UPDATE ON KEY LEGISLATION – With the 77th Legislative Session heading into its final month, crunch time has finally arrived. The deadlines for passing legislation out of committee and wrapping up floor debate will arrive fast and furious over the next few weeks, with the vast majority of bills destined for the dustbin. The following is a review of key legislative deadlines, and the status of important bills that have been tracked by Texas Eagle Forum this session. 

Key Deadlines:

Being separate legislative bodies, the House and Senate typically choose not to operate on the same legislative timetable. As a result, the “real” deadline for bills is oftentimes much earlier than the official deadline thanks to scheduling conflicts between the two bodies. For example, the last day for the House to consider House Bills on the floor is Thursday, May 10. However, Senate committees must report out all bills, including House Bills, the very next day. Because of this Senate requirement, House Bills needing to go through a Senate committee (basically all of them) must be passed and forwarded to the Senate long before the May 10 deadline. Keep this fact in mind as you ponder the following legislative crunch time schedule:

Clearly, time is winding down for all but the select few bills that have already advanced far into the legislative process. Keep these dates in mind as you review Texas Eagle Forum’s list of important legislation.

Key Bills Tracked by Texas Eagle Forum:

(Key: ↑ = TEF favors the bill, ↓ = TEF opposes, ± TEF is neutral)

Brief Notes From Near and Far

ACLU NAMES FIRST EVER GAY-HISPANIC DIRECTOR – Anthony D. Romero, a 35 year-old public interest attorney from New York, was named executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Romero had served as the director of the Ford Foundation’s program for human rights and international cooperation, overseeing $90 million in grants. Mr. Romero is a graduate of Princeton University and Stanford Law School, and is the first Hispanic and openly gay man to occupy the ACLU’s top post. 

Little needs to be said of the ACLU’s oftentimes strident opposition to conservative social policy, but one cannot help but wonder if the organization will drift even further to the Left (if that’s even possible) under the guidance of Mr. Romero. His recent comments seem to indicate that he intends to lead the ACLU in such a direction. He noted that the group will continue to focus on defending religious liberty, reproductive freedom and the rights of women, minorities and gays, while seeking to “promote a new generation of committed civil libertarians and civil-rights activists.” 

**SPECIAL CONSERVATIVE TRANSLATION FEATURE**

Anytime someone from the ACLU begins waxing eloquent about things like “religious liberty” and the need for more “civil libertarians,” conservatives must immediately undertake the arduous task of translating such rhetoric from politically-correct jargon into everyday English. Always happy to take on a daunting task, I have painstakingly translated Mr. Romero’s comments into language we all can understand. Please do not attempt to do this at home without a politically correct lexicon handy:

He self-righteously proclaimed that his group of enlightened Ivy League educated attorneys would seek to eliminate through litigation any trace of religion in public life, defend at all costs the super-right of abortion-on-demand, and bow low before the liberal pantheon of feminists, the NAACP, and the homosexual lobby while simultaneously training a generation of college students to hate the traditional values that this nation was founded on in favor of more enlightened relativistic morality, and pushing for the balkanization of American society into enclaves of self-interested groups clamoring for their rights (it’s good for the public interest business, by golly!). 

Like I said, don’t try this at home.

Commentary - Charges of Homophobia Clutter Hate-Crimes Debate

Demonizing one’s political opponents is a time-honored tradition in the annals of legislative warfare, serving the duel purposes of shrouding oneself in a cloud of moral rectitude while avoiding any debate on the tangible merits of a given position. Such is the case with the current debate over hate-crimes in the Texas Legislature. Instead of engaging his opponents in reasoned discourse over the potential effects of his proposed James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act, Senator Rodney Ellis has accused those who disagree with him of harboring a particularly egregious form of intolerance know as “homophobia.” 

This charge bears careful scrutiny because, if true, it closes off the possibility of reasoned debate. After all, how can one reasonably discuss hate-crimes with an individual who suffers from, as the Anti-Defamation League calls it, the “irrational fear of people who are believed to be lesbian, gay or bisexual?” 

While it is true that opponents of the hate-crimes bill (myself included) harbor misgivings about the inclusion of “sexual preference” in the bill’s listing of protected categories, their opposition to hate-crimes stems from something other than knee-jerk prejudice. In general, these people oppose hate-crimes because they believe that all crimes are hate crimes; and they see no reason why their government should give greater protection to certain groups while withholding it from others. In addition, they understandably fear that a government empowered to prosecute not just the actions of an individual, but the content of the motivations behind those actions, possesses far too much power over the personal beliefs and opinions of its citizens. Although many people differ as to the validity of these concerns, no one can deny their inherent rationality. 

These concerns are given no consideration and valuable discussion do not take place, however, when the public’s attention is fixated on the alleged homophobia of the bill’s opponents. Thus, the question must be asked: what of Senator Ellis’ accusation that his opponents bear unjustifiable fear towards those with “alternative sexual preferences?” Can any reason other than blind fear and hatred motivate one to find the categorization of sexual preference particularly reprehensible, as many opponents of hate-crimes are wont to do? 

The answer is unequivocally “yes.” By grouping sexual preference with other legally protected characteristics such as race, gender, age, and national ancestry, homosexuals would become yet another group in America’s quickly growing pantheon of “minorities,” with all of the concurrent rights and benefits. The plausibility of this outcome was dramatically demonstrated last summer when Vermont’s highest court found in Baker vs. State that homosexuals possessed the right to marry thanks in part to their status under the state’s hate-crimes law as a protected class of individuals. To those who oppose hate-crimes as well as to the majority of Texans, the destruction of an institution as vital as marriage would be a tragic consequence of a bill crafted with the intent of snuffing out acts of hatred. 

Even if this possibility gives Senator Ellis no sense of trepidation, at the very least it should force him to engage his opponents with the sense of respect due such weighty concerns. Regrettably, no such response has been forthcoming. Instead, charges of homophobia continue to be bandied about, and the possibility of constructive debate over hate-crimes appears increasingly remote. How ironic then that reasoned discussion constitutes the first step in breaking the bonds of ignorance and intolerance, yet those who call for tolerance are the first to drive reason from the public forum. 

* Editor’s Note: Shortly after this article was written, the Hate Crimes Act passed the full Senate by a vote of 20-10. Apparently, Senator Ellis’ accusations of homophobia were effective. 

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