Senator Edward Kennedy has proposed adding hate crimes legislation to the defense spending bill, according to WorldNetDaily. The proposal is clearly manipulative, since President Bush wants to pass defense appropriations, but has threatened to veto a hate-crimes bill that would make sexual orientation a federally protected category.
In general, hate crimes legislation is bad law, simply because it requires law enforcement officials to read minds. Law enforcement should punish people for the crime committed, not for the real or perceived "hate" behind the crime. (Violent crimes, after all, are rarely committed out of love for the victim.) Whether a man is beaten and robbed because he is white, or black, or Jewish, or Christian, or gay, or wears glasses, or wears Adidas instead of Nikes, he is still the victim of a crime. There are already laws against violent crimes. Those should be enforced. But our thoughts - whether righteous or evil - remain free.
Ex-Gay Discrimination:
There is another aspect to the issue of discrimination, however;  ex-gays.  In order to gain acceptance, homosexual activists have worked hard to train Americans to believe that same-sex attraction is inbred and genetic. After all, many homosexuals have struggled against their same-sex attractions without success. It is easy for many with homosexual desires to believe they were simply "born that way."
Nothing could harm that argument more than people who claim to have once been homosexual and now are not. For those who want to be straight, ex-gays and ex-lesbians offer hope. To militant homosexual activists, however, there is no greater threat than men and women who offer evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.
Despite the homosexual activists' cries for diversity, there seems to be little tolerance for ex-gays. In 2002, Regina Griggs wrote in the Harvard Crimson:
"Each year thousands of men and women with same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave homosexuality by means of reparative therapy, ex-gay ministry or group counseling. Their choice is one only they can make. However, there are others who refuse to respect that choice, and endeavor to attack the ex-gay community. Consequently, ex-gays are subject to an increasingly hostile environment where they are reviled or attacked as perpetrators of hate and discrimination simply because they dare to exist."
She gives the examples of Larry Houston, David Ott, Tim Wilkins, and Richard Cohen - all ex-gay men who have faced discrimination (even to being fired or charged with a hate crime) for insisting that homosexual attraction can be overcome.
While we do not hear much about them in the popular press, there are crowds of freed ex-gays. Some have become completely heterosexual, and some are still in progress (just like we all are).
Unfortunately, many gay people who would love to change don't believe it is possible. They believe that they are stuck with their same-sex attraction and are told by pro-gay friends to just accept themselves as they are. They don't know they can go to God for help because they believe that God hates them and that Christians hate them.
The best thing the Church can do for people with same-sex attractions is to give them the true, pure, constant love of Jesus Christ. According to one ex-gay man, the thing that helps him most in his daily walk toward healing is true love and encouragement from Christians.  Love is what many people with same-sex attractions really want, and only the faithful love and power of God can truly satisfy that human longing.
Original Source