A House resolution submitted by Democrats on December 17th seeks to condemn “hate speech” directed towards Muslims.

House Resolution 569 is a bill that seeks to “condemn(ing) violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.”

Particularly concerning is the statement, “Whereas the constitutional right to freedom of religious practice is a cherished United States value and violence or hate speech towards any United States community based on faith is in contravention of the Nation’s founding principles.”

Why is it concerning? The statement rightfully speaks of freedom of religion, yet contains no hint that the Democrats supporting this resolution recognize the Constitutional right to free speech.

Via FrontPage Mag:

December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment. Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.” The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

That’s right: “violence, bigotry and hateful rhetoric.” The implications of those five words will fly by most people who read them, and the mainstream media, of course, will do nothing to elucidate them. But what H. Res. 569 does is conflate violence — attacks on innocent civilians, which have no justification under any circumstances – with “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric,” which are identified on the basis of subjective judgments.

 

HR-569 was submitted by Donald Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, and currently has 82 co-sponsors.  Co-sponsors from New York include:

  • Joseph Crowley (D-NY-14)
  • Carolyn Maloney (D-NY-12)
  • Charlie Rangel (D-NY-13)
  • Brian Higgins (D-NY-26)
  • Gregory Meeks (D-NY-5)
  • Grace Meng (D-NY-6)
  • Jose Serrano (D-NY-15)
  • Paul Tonko (D-NY-20)

If doing away with freedom of speech sounds foreign to you and I, it sounds very similar to followers of a different rule of law.

Sonia Bailley writes in the American Thinker that “Any form of expression that reflects badly on Islam is in violation of Islamic law, which forbids any criticism of Islam, even what that criticism expresses the truth.”

That’s right, Democrats in Congress have submitted a resolution that ignores the Constitutional right to free speech, while simultaneously adhering more closely to Islamic law.

Did these same Democrats submit a resolution condemning terrorism in the name of radical Islam?