The following article can be found at: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/101309/new_503995790.shtml
Broun blasts Nobel Prize, hate-crime amendment
Congressman addresses Clarke GOP
President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize shows that the award is "a farce," U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, said Monday.
Obama was awarded the prize Friday after just nine months in office, shocking even many of his most ardent supporters.
"To me, it just shows that the Nobel Peace Prize has become a farce," said Broun, a harsh and frequent critic of the president.
Speaking to a group of Clarke County Republicans, Broun said the Nobel committee is pursuing its own political agenda. He pointed to other winners such as former Vice President Al Gore, who won for publicizing climate change, and former President Jimmy Carter, who won for his humanitarian work.
"The Nobel committee is looking toward people who have a very liberal bent, and they see in Barack Obama somebody who is articulating the type of philosophy that they believe in, so they gave him the prize," Broun said.
The five-member committee, which is elected by the Norwegian Parliament, said it gave Obama the prize for his diplomatic efforts and desire to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Reaction to the prize Friday was mixed. Many Democrats admitted Obama has not done much yet to deserve the award, but believe he eventually will live up to it. Some Republicans simply congratulated him, while others used the news to paint him as the darling of the international left.
Broun also criticized Democratic leaders for attaching unrelated hate-crimes language to a funding bill for the military that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday.
The bill, which is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law, adds gays to the list of federally protected groups and strengthens penalties for physically attacking a person over sexual orientation. Supporters say it will help prevent violence like the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old man who was tortured and murdered in Montana in 1998. According to FBI statistics, 1,460 crimes were motivated by sexual orientation in 2007, the most recent year on record.
Broun said Democrats only folded the hate-crimes bill into the $681 billion defense bill because they knew it would not pass by itself. He said he voted against the defense bill in hopes of defeating it so the House leadership would remove the hate-crimes language.
"It's going to create a situation where one person's life, one person's property, is going to be considered more valuable than someone else's just because of their sexual orientation," he said. "That's not right. We're all supposed to be equal under the law."
The bill passed the House 281-146 on Thursday. All seven Georgia Republican congressmen voted against it.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Ok...please note this final quote from the amazing Paul Broun: "That's not right. We're all supposed to be equal under the law." Interesting concept Mr. Broun brings up. I would assume, being the fair person that I am, that "equal under the law" would mean ALL having equal rights. Wouldn't this mean the equal right to marriage? What a concept! I like that. The rest of his ridiculous biggot comments...I do not like. Obviously he doesn't understand the meaning of all being equal. I really can't understand why ANYONE of any political party, race, gender, background, etc. would ever want to exclude something from being considered a hate crime?? I mean wow...that's radical in my opinion. But hey, that is my opinion :) I won't get on my soapbox at the moment.
And props to K for posting the article on FB and inspiring this post (which pretty much points out exactly what she said :p )
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