President Bush Has "The Pen" Ready

This is a move (the veto of the hate crimes bill) that most Christians believe will allow Pastors to preach what the Bible teaches and not allow government to dictate what we preach from the pulpit.


President Bush poised to make 'hate crimes' veto

Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
October 2, 2007

The White House is reaffirming its plan to veto legislation that would federalize the prosecution of so-called "hate crimes."

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Last week, the Senate voted to attach "hate crime" legislation to the Defense Authorization bill. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), would expand hate crime law to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, or disability of victims. White House spokesman Tim Goeglein says it is "the height of irresponsibility" for senators to tie the hate crimes legislation to an important Pentagon spending bill.

"The president has said overwhelmingly that these are two separate issues -- that they should not be combined; and the president has reiterated his commitment to vetoing the hate crimes provision," says Goeglein. "So until it comes to the president either in two bills or in one bill, we will hold off getting a straight statement of administration policy. But we fully intend to see the Congress make a decision on this sometime in the next week to a week in a half."

With the exception of the hate crimes amendment, President Bush supports the must-pass spending bill. According to Goeglein, the White House thinks it is irresponsible to add a provision the president has already committed to vetoing to an "otherwise necessary bill."

The White House spokesman says he hopes the Democrats will move in the right direction and remove the amendment. Earlier this year, President Bush issued a veto threat against a stand-alone hate crimes measure that passed the House -- with the White House calling the measure "unnecessary and constitutionally questionable."