In March Foxx (right) opposed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, fuming that “We are teaching our people to go to work for the government. What a shame! Shame on us.” Don't forget: Foxx has worked for government agencies all her career, at UNC Chapel Hill, Appalachian State University, Mayland Community College, the N.C. Senate and now Congress.
Her latest: She said the killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay man beaten and left for dead in Wyoming in 1998, is being used as a “hoax” to push legislation to expand the definition of hate crimes to those motivated by sexual orientation.
Foxx said that “the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”
One of the two men tried and convicted of killing Shepard cited a “gay panic” defense: He was uncontrollable because of a homosexual advance.
Foxx later said she had used “a poor choice of words” and made a mistake believing some news accounts that speculated the motivation for the killing was drug use. Shepard's death, she said, was “nothing less than a tragedy and those responsible … deserved the punishment they received.”
Her explanation suggests Foxx is less concerned about the killings of gay citizens and more concerned about limiting the ability of authorities to consider a victim’s sexual orientation as a motive. It raises this question: did voters in her congressional district also make "a poor choice"?
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45 comments:
Why do I get the feeling that the hee-haws who voted her into office probably agree with her rediculous statements?
Congress should censure Foxx for what she said yesterday.
The Observer Star Chamber (Editorial Board) was held today and Virginia Foxx has been found guilty with out even having been told or allowed to speak on her behalf. She was wrong and admitted it. But unlike those who the Star Chamber likes, She will not be given any room for mistakes.
Therefore they will dog her the rest of her days. After all they are the final say on all things.
But the point overlooked is the fact we apparently want to assign points to crimes.
If it was done on a stormy night causing the Police to come out in the rain we assign extra points.
If the person attacked likes having sex with three women they get special sex consideration and the person attacking or killing them is assigned more points.
We have laws the cover all of us in this country and pushing up a crime because it offends the senses and therefore gets in the news should not be the way we ALL get justice in this country.
What we need is a system that actually gets police out where and when they are needed and those arrested should be forced to pay for their crime once they are found guilty.
But if you want protected groups then that will open up more protected groups than you can imagine or would want to have protected.
I have an open question to anyone reading this. If someone kills another person over a disagreement, regardless of what the said disagreement happens to be about, is that less of a crime than if someone killed another person due to his/her sexual orientation?
I by no means am attempting to champion the comments made by Foxx, I'm simply trying to get my head around the reason why there should be a difference.
I welcome your responses.
I was very upset to see her congressional testimony on UTube. In order to understand why she would bear false witness in such a public way, I started looking for local news reports from your state for insight....
I see that your paper has covered her comments as "...making NC famous, for uttering wacko things..." and am amazed.
If we lie about crime, we are as guilty as those who commit it.
...and also that North Carolina must be a very sad place if this is the best representative you can come up with.
Don't blame me, I voted for Roy Carter.
She is such a disgrace to our state.
This woman is not just an embarassment who made a poor choice, she is an EMPOWERED FOOL whose lack of awareness will inevitably lead to poor choices for her constituents. She should be replaced at the next election.
OH....please...some rich guy....see that you can make money by having newspaper that is not so left wing and that will kick the Charlotte Obs butt out of this market.
anonymoous 5:28- the way this way was killed was especially brutal. Much of the violence attributed to this murder was is the perps own words a reaction to this man's sexual orientation. Because the perps paid extra-special attention to make sure this man suffered for hours before he actually died, it qualifies as a hate crime.
Joe Perry-Don't even get me started on Florida ;)
I dunno but I bet the hee haws that voted for her can spell ridiculous better than you...
its a proven fact the guy was killed because he was a drug addict, who owed money to a drug dealer who was coming off a Meth high.
To stretch those facts or rather ignore them to claim the only reason he was killed was because he was gay is not factual or very smart
This is not a right wing left wing issue - this is about representatives in Washington that are clearly uninformed and that hurts everybody. I agree that she is an "Empowered Fool" as well as ignorant and that can be a very dangerous thing...
This is a special crime, not just another murder. It's kinda like when people were killing people because they were black. We created hate crimes based on race. This is just adding something to a different kind of bigotry.
I would like to know what she really meant to say, but I don't believe that she could change her words to mean anything other than what she said earlier.
What I heard her say earlier is that she is an ignorant bigot.
Amazing how the Observer omits Key Evidence from the trial:
1) Matthew Shepherd was a Drug Addict and owed Drug money to his killers
2) the Killers were high on Meth
nope, all that matters is how the perps tried to lessen their sentence.
This paper is a Joke
He was not killed because he was Gay, he was Killed because he was a Drug Addict who owed a Drugged up Drug Dealer MONEY.
Read the freaking Trial
Why don't you ask Dr Dubois, Chancellor of UNCC? He was the chancellor of U of Wyoming when Shepherd was killed. He'll verify that it was indeed a hate crime.
Matthew Shephard's death has been disected enough and the facts are strong enough to have moved the nation, a few ignorant soles such as Ms Foxx excluded. Virginia Foxx is clearly an EMPOWERED FOOL who should learn to think before she sticks her foot in her mouth and becomes a flashpoint of stupidity and embarasses her constituents again.
If we are going to call someone an ignorant soul, let's spell it correctly please.
Wow, somebody here is a lot more concerned with typos that errors in fact... Honestly, some of the ignorance on view here makes me feel that I have been wallowing in muck and need to scrape the soles of my shoes off... The hard fact is this is another elected representative who represents ignorance rather that the people she was elected to serve - an EMPOWERED FOOL!
Poorly said, absolutely. You can't deny that.
Was she wrong? No. The thugs who killed the poor kids were after his drugs. His homosexuality had nothing to do with it.
The kid was tortured for hours because he was gay, and that was acknowledged by his murderers. His death moved Americans because it was a hate crime. If there were other factors involved, they were secondary. What happened to him involved a number of crimes, including the FACT that he was tortured because he was homosexual. Ms Foxx is a lot like those who think the Holocaust was fabricated also, but she is a US representative which makes her comments a reflection on those who elected her as well - she is an EMPOWERED FOOL!!!
Ask Biden what his take is on it...ha ha ha ha haha ha
Biden will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that she is an EMPOWERED FOOL.
The rest of ya are just bigoted fools.
The Washington Post claims Biden has foot in mouth disease because he does not want to be in close quarters while traveling. Foxx seems to have it too because she does not want to protect homosexuals from hate crimes. Does that make them alike???
You can't sensor free speeech, even when you don't agree with what's being spoken.
What bothers me is, when people speak... the majority of people should "speak up" on their opinion of what is being said and that is how you label "crazy talk" vs. "reasonable talk".
The fact that the woman was elected and holds an office, just proves how it takes one to know one... and we must be dealing with a state full of 'crazy people' who find 'crazy talk' reasonable.
owe yeah, a Drug Addict who owed his Meth High Drug Dealer alot of money, wasn't killed because of that.
the killers said: "Who cares about the money or the drugs I'm on, this is only because you are gay!"
the logic of the politicized left/Observer
If you think that Shepard was killed because of drugs, bring some proof.
Hate crimes = terrorism
"hate crime" is a truism. What exactly is a love crime?
This is a highly biased article. The motive behind Sheppard's death was not sexual orientation. If you are a drug addict and get involved with drug dealers, the probability of you getting killed is always present. The gay community used this case to incite furor in the country, misquoting the fact and misguiding all the naive people that believe in their agenda. I have met many hommosexuals in my life, and most of them were pathological liers. Before making assumptions about what I just said, just think about the ones you have met in your own life. To live in a manner against nature is to live a lie and perpetuate self delusion. Not politically correct, but true, nevertheless.
Why did Rep Foxx have to mention
Matt Shepard?Just say you are against the bill.Why say it is a HOAX that Matt Shepard was killed because he is gay. How would she know, was she there when it happened ?
It could be that even the murders do not know why the did it.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- In their first public interview since attacking gay college student Matthew Shepard, his killers said they were motivated not by homophobia, but the prospect of robbery to fuel a methamphetamine binge.
"He was pretty well-dressed, had a wallet full of money," Aaron McKinney said of meeting Shepard at a Laramie bar in October 1998. "All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him. ... Seemed like a good idea at the time."
The interviews air Friday on ABC's "20/20."
The robbery got out of hand, said McKinney and his buddy, Russell Henderson, and Shepard was beaten into a coma while tied to a fence outside the small college town. The 21-year-old died five days later.
The crime drew condemnation from President Clinton, Congress and the international community, and spurred debate on the effectiveness of hate crime laws. McKinney and Henderson, both 27, are serving life sentences for murder.
McKinney said he killed Shepard because he was strung out on drugs, not because Shepard was gay. Henderson agreed, saying "it's not because me and Aaron had anything against gays or any of that."
Henderson said that McKinney, who had been bingeing on meth for days, set out that night to rob a dealer of $10,000 worth of the drug. Henderson thought if he could keep McKinney drinking, his friend would forget the plan.
McKinney said Shepard was sitting at the bar when he and Henderson arrived, and at one point McKinney asked Shepard for a cigarette. "He said he was too drunk to go home and then he asked me if I'd give him a ride," McKinney said.
In the truck, McKinney claimed, the two learned Shepard wanted sex in return for giving them drugs, but McKinney decided to rob Shepard instead.
According to McKinney, Shepard grabbed his leg and he struck Shepard with his gun and demanded money. Although Shepard handed over his wallet, the beating continued.
"Sometimes when you have that rage going through you, there's no stopping it," McKinney said. "I've attacked my best friends coming off of meth binges."
They decided to dump Shepard in a secluded spot, and when they came upon a rustic fence blocking the road, McKinney decided to tie him to it.
"Then when I'm leaving, he says he's going to tell on me," McKinney said. "I went back and hit him one more time. I hit him real hard that time."
One of McKinney's attorneys, Dion Custis, said Wednesday that drugs and robbery, not sexuality, have long been considered the main motives for the crime.
"If anyone saw the trial and the evidence that was presented at trial, that was exactly what we presented at the time," he said.
Prosecutor Cal Rerucha also said the case was too complex to simply be labeled a hate crime. He said many people overlooked the drug and robbery aspects of the case at the time of the attack.
"People want an easy answer to this case and I don't think we would be here five years later if there was an easy answer," Rerucha said.
as you can see, and the Observer should know, Foxx was RIGHT in this case. Perhaps the Observer shouldn't be reporting based on what Media Matters and George Soros tell them!
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=2
He was not killed because he was gay, that is a lie
the left, continuing the lie, are naming these 'hate crime' bills in Shepards name, that is why Foxx mentioned him.
She tells the truth and gets scorn for it.
Observer = George Soros/Media Matters puppets
Murder is already a capital crime, congress is wasting time
As one of her constituents who has fought her from day one, I see the problem as lack of competition for her seat. Dems keep rolling out tired, unknown teachers and coaches to fight her machine. Hope to God they can come up with something better soon. She had gall to tell me if I didn't agree with her views, I could just leave the country!
To all previous posters-Everyone knows he was killed b/c of his affiliation with drugs. He was tortured for hours, strapped to a fence because he was gay. This is a hate crime.
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann may not be the most stone stupid member of Congress after all! Virginia Foxx proves again that being a clueless, ignorant idiot means never having to say you're sorry; you just say you used a "poor choice of words" and catch your breath before you offer your next mindnumbingly stupid statement.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and you are a moron.
Re: comment about someone 71 has no business on any board. Sorry that you can't individualize people. I am 76 on two boards, still a working RN and have my brains working just fine, thank you. Tarheel Woman
Virginia Foxx would do well as an elected leader in Iran where they think the Holocaust was a hoax, but she has no business in the US Congress.
No matter if you are gay or not, why would you want a bill named after a drug pusher. He must have been pushing to have so much money on him they wanted to rob him rather than getting drugs. That is what it was before the hate crime. And anyway, murder is the same no matter why it is committed. I am with Foxx on this one.
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