A May 3 CNSNews.com article by Randy Hall on a proposed “hate crimes” bill that would cover sexual orientation repeats without challenge a misleading claim by Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America:
“Justice should be blind,” CWA President Wendy Wright said in a news release. She said the assailants of Matthew Shepard – a homosexual youth who was killed in 1998 – should receive the same sentence as the killer of Mary Stachowicz, “a grandmother who was brutally murdered by a homosexual man [in Chicago in 2002].”
“Victims are – and should be – treated equally in the justice system, regardless of their ‘sexual orientation,'” Wright added. “We cannot imagine that President Bush would sign a bill that would create a two-tiered justice system that discriminates against grandmothers.”
Neither Wright nor Hall explain how the bill “discriminates against grandmothers” — a shameless, fraudulent appeal we saw a few weeks ago when with both CNS and WorldNetDaily swallowed right-wing spin that the bill will throw grandmas in jail. Nor do they point out that, since it covers “actual or perceived religion,” the hate-crimes bill would likely cover Stachowicz, a “devout Catholic” (as described in a CWFA column) whose “questioning” of Nicholas Gutierrez’s “lifestyle” is reported to be a factor in her murder.
Hall also adopts the conservative view of gays — that they are not homosexual but are “individuals who engage in homosexual behavior,” a terminology he used in his description of the bill.
In fact, this article features no supporter of the bill defending it. Another May 3 article by Hall on the bill contains a mere three paragraphs (out of 26) quoting a sponsor of the bill in support. Similarly, a May 3 article on the bill by Nathan Birchfiel contains only two paragraphs (out of 19) telling the supporters’ case.