C-SPAN After Dark: Alcee Hastings' Cher-Like Awards Show Acceptance Speech

May 1, 2009

 

When the lights go down and the squares leave the House floor and head back home to their second and third spouses, anything can happen in the glimmering dusky lights of Congress as the ghosts of Gerry Studds, Wilbur Mills, and Mark Foley roam the floor looking for action.

In this episode of C-SPAN After Dark, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) catalogs just about every perversion ever dreamed of by the U.S. Congress. We're not exactly sure if he's reading staff-written research or simply indulging in spontaneous bop prosody, but we're pretty certain that America will never be the same again. Or that HR 1913, a.k.a. the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, never sounded so sweet.

Kids, don't try this at an awards program!

More details here.

Reason's Jacob Sullum on this bill here.

Back in 1999, Rob Blanchard went to Wyoming in the wake of the brutal killing of Matthew Shepard, the hideous crime that inspired the current law. Blanchard's well-worth-reading story is here.

Comments

Stephen Smith|5.2.09 @ 2:32AM|#

So if I understand it correctly, he's complaining about the fact that some rep (or staffer?) specifically excluded hate crimes for these reasons, and rather than being offended that that these people aren't protected by the law, he's rather just pissed off that he has to read that kind of bullshit? Also: why does he roll his r's somewhere around the middle? Also: kleptomania isn't a sexual predilection. Also: are you telling me that if I commit a hate crime against someone because they are a gerontophile (i.e., I they have a thing for old people) or they're into BDSM, that doesn't count as a hate crime? Weird shit.

anarch|5.2.09 @ 4:51AM|#

Europhilia is now a pathology? Does that refer to the culture or the currency?

ed|5.2.09 @ 8:08AM|#

I believe he was responding to Republican attempts to include these other "unprotected" classes of "lifestyle choices" in the bill being debated. Mr. Hastings was himself a victim of hate: a former federal judge who was impeached and removed from office in 1989 on two counts; perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice, one of only twelve judges in American history to be so "hated."

Wicks Cherrycoke|5.2.09 @ 9:23AM|#

The real joke, of course, is the very fact of a federal "hate crimes" law. But that's another story.

|5.2.09 @ 11:49AM|#

It is also legislation that criminalizes speech. Arresting, prosectuing and incarcerating one who questions the nature and extent of the jewish holocaust will happen right here in the good ole socialist USA-and soon. When that happens, how many "brave men and women in uniform" will step up and KILL ANY LEO WHO GET IN THE WAY OF FREEING THE VICTIM?

perilisk|5.2.09 @ 11:56AM|#

"The list: 'apotemnophilia, asphyxophilia, autogynephilia, coprophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism, gerontosexuality, incest, kleptophilia, klismaphilia, necrophilia, partialism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, telephone scatalogia, toucherism, transgenderism, transsexual, transvestite, transvestic fetishism, urophilia, voyeurism, or zoophilia.'"

"The bill passed without the amendment. Hastings said it would guarantee that 'all Americans,' including those with 'all of these -philias and fetishes and -isms that were put forward, need not live in fear because of who they are.' A related bill is in the Senate."

So, when conservatives suggest that protecting gays is a slippery slope leading to legalizing bestiality, necrophilia, and child rapists, Alcee Hastings both agrees and feels that we ought to reach the end of the slope ASAP. Christ, I'd love to be the lucky Republican putting together attack ads when this guy runs for re-election.

Moveover, I bet the guy supports sex offender registration and various living restrictions, which means that he thinks it should be a hate crime to do what he feels the law should itself do -- punish a certain group of people not for their actions (which were presumably punished by their actual sentence) but instead for who they are, and what they might do as a result. People should not live in fear of the lower classes because of who they are, only of people like Alcee Hastings and their enforcers.

If I say I have a fetish for kicking idiots like Hastings in the testicles as hard as possible, can I use that as an affirmative defense now? Call it "evolutiophilia".

|5.2.09 @ 12:32PM|#

Whoa, hey! What's wrong with necrophilia? Or coprophilia, of course?

perilisk|5.2.09 @ 12:55PM|#

Corpses are the property of the next of kin, so unless the corpse-violator is the owner of the corpse, it's an act of vandalism.

And in the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses (against property) are considered especially heinous.

|5.2.09 @ 12:59PM|#

"And in the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses (against property) are considered especially heinous."

gosh danged law and order types.

|5.2.09 @ 1:07PM|#

Cannibalism? Racism, perilisk? That's--that's not for us. You know, those are the decisions that are best left to the suits in Washington, OK? We're just here to eat some dude.

Kreel Sarloo|5.2.09 @ 3:03PM|#

Christ, I'd love to be the lucky Republican putting together attack ads when this guy runs for re-election.

Hastings represents a majority black district in South Florida.

A Republican will win that seat on the day that Satan opens a skating rink on his property.

And a challenger in the Democratic primary has to deal with the fact that it is widely believed by Alcee's constituents that the only reason he was impeached is because the man was out to get him.

|5.2.09 @ 6:07PM|#

Maybe I'm hard of hearing, but what exactly did you mean by the statement, "And in the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses (against property) are considered especially anus."?

What did one cannibal say to t|5.2.09 @ 7:14PM|#

Does this meat taste funny to you?

Yuk Yuk Yuk|5.2.09 @ 9:00PM|#

Two sailors and a nun get shipwrecked on a desert island.

After a week she was so ashamed of what she was doing she killed herself.

After another week the sailors were so ashamed of what they were doing they buried her.

After another week the sailors were so ashamed at what they were doing they dug her up again.

|5.3.09 @ 3:49PM|#

Maybe he's just reading his C.V. in to the record.

Joel|5.3.09 @ 6:22PM|#

Naw. He never even mentioned perjuryphilia.

hmm|5.3.09 @ 9:41PM|#

I got wood.

air jordan shoes|5.3.09 @ 10:15PM|#

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R&B cares|5.6.09 @ 8:45AM|#

he's reading his C.V. in to the record.