Senate majority leader Bill Frist’s office told me that although Senator Edward Kennedy has vowed to force a vote in the Senate, attaching his “anti-hate” bill, S.1145, to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, S.1086, Frist will not give Kennedy such an opportunity. The House of Representatives on Sept.14th passed the House version of Kennedy’s bill, H.R. 2662, as a rider to the Children’s Safety Act, H.R.3132. Yet Frist is under no obligation to bring the Senate version of the Children’s Safety Act, S.1086, to a vote. This effectively kills the hate bill’s chances of passage in Congress this year.

On the other hand, the Sex Offender bill may not have to be a casualty of the standoff between Frist and Kennedy. Frist’s staff says that Frist may well find a way, perhaps when Kennedy is absent, to force a quick vote on S.1086 and pass it. Further, I was told, Frist will not entertain Kennedy’s request to attach S.1145 in the next session of Congress.

For all practical purposes, the hate bill is dead.

HOW SENATOR KENNEDY FUMBLED HIS HATE BILL

Before October 20, 2005, Senator Edward Kennedy had it all. The House of Representatives passed their version of his cherished Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005, Amdt. 2662, with blitzkrieg rapidity. The Senate Judiciary Committee was also poised to pass his Senate version of the hate bill, S.1145, by a margin of 10 to 8. Such a majority virtually guaranteed that Judiciary Republicans could not change the language of Kennedy’s bill. It would not only pass Judiciary but would also sail through the liberal Senate, which over a year ago overwhelmingly approved the same hate bill by a vote of 65 to 33. That bill was overturned in conference between the House and Senate, but Kennedy was confident that this time the Senate would pass his hate bill.

This was the moment of decisive advantage pursued by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (originator of this legislation), the homosexual lobby, and Kennedy for at least 28 years. Though Kennedy’s hate bill has been defeated four times, he repeatedly vowed not to give up until it becomes federal law.

Yet on Oct. 20, at the moment of imminent victory, the playboy who panicked at Chappaquiddick again did the inexplicable. He threw away his position of advantage. He compromised with the Republicans.

Kennedy knew this compromise would send his hate bill again under the possible guillotine of conference, which had repeatedly been dominated by Republicans opposed to hate laws. He also knew that Frist would never allow him to bring this hate bill, S.1145, to a vote in the Senate. Still, Kennedy compromised. He gave up the victory he could have had.

PEDOPHILE POWER

What was Kennedy’s motive? It’s simple. He compromised to please his pedophile lobby, which wanted to water down the Children’s Safety Act, lightening penalties on child molesters. He promised Republicans that if they would soften this act, he would:

• Not press Judiciary to add his hate bill, S.1145, to the Children’s Safety Act.
• Allow Judiciary Republicans to create their own version of the Act. (This became the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2005, S.1086.)