AFA: Hate Crimes Bill is Un-American

The American Family Association, a self-proclaimed pro-family advocacy organization, on Monday criticized the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act as "simply un-American" and encouraged its members to contact Congress members who supported the legislation.

"The law created by this bill is exceedingly dangerous and represents a huge step toward normalizing homosexual and transsexual behavior in this country," said AFA president Tim Wildmon in a press release.

"It creates a kind of caste system in law enforcement, where the perverse thing is that people who engage in non-normative sexual behavior will have more legal protection than heterosexuals," added Wildmon. "This kind of inequality before the law is simply un-American."

Bryan Fischer, the AFA's director of issues analysis, also critiqued the bill, which amends the 1969 federal hate-crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

"Despite the protests of homosexual activists, this is a communist-style law against politically-incorrect thoughts, since there are enhanced criminal penalties that aren't based on what somebody did but on what they were thinking at the time," said Fisher.

The AFA sent out an action alert on Tuesday to its 2.6 million-member network. The alert informs members how their representatives voted on the bill and urges them to contact Congress members who supported the legislation.

"We must let every senator who voted for the 'hate crimes' bill know that his vote will not be forgotten when he stands for re-election," reads the alert.