Where's The News Coverage?

Where's The News Coverage?

I saw a rather amazing piece of coverage the night before last on Fox News claiming that House Republicans attempted to amend HR 1913 to specify that pedophilia was not a sexual orientation for purposes of this hate crimes law--and that Democrats voted it down. This article at World Net Daily makes the same claim. And here's the video of Rep. King (R-IA) introducing that amendment, and the Democrats vote it down.



Now, I understand that strictly speaking, pedophilia is not a "sexual orientation" under APA's definition. But I've also learned that relying on external definitions for a law opens up the danger of the APA changing its definition. And another member of the committee in the video above claims that federal law already defines sexual orientation. And if pedophilia is not a sexual orientation for the purposes of HR 1913, what's the harm in saying so?

Homosexuality isn't pedophilia--but the way that Democrats in Congress are acting suggests that they are either too stupid to see the political hay that Republicans can make out of this--or are afraid to offend someone by specifically excuding pedophiles from the definition of sexual orientation. This is one of those amendments that really makes you wonder what the Democrats are after. This was a Mom and Apple Pie sort of amendment, if the goal really is to protect homosexuals from hate crimes. It costs nothing; it changes nothing; it just makes it really clear that pedophiles aren't a protected class. And voting against it? That's going to have a cost, assuming that the Republican Party is smart enough to use this bizarre vote at the next election.