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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGrassley Holds Domestic Violence Victims Hostage To Lash Out At Gay Victims And Immigrants
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/15/425816/grassley-takes-straight-domestic-violence-victims-hostage-to-lash-out-at-gay-victims-and-immigrants/Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, and its been reauthorized without a hitch twice since then. Now that its up for reauthorization again, however, Senate Republicans have suddenly decided to use it as part of an anti-gay and anti-immigrant crusade. Every single Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against reauthorization, with Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) taking the lead against the bill:
The objections, led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and a few conservative organizations, are not over the VAWA as a whole, but over a few new provisions in the reauthorization specifically, protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse and the authority of Native American tribes to prosecute crimes.
The Leahy bill enumerates protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence, forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by VAWA grantees.
The VAWA reauthorization also expands the availability of visas for undocumented immigrants who have been victims of domestic violence and may be reluctant to come forward because of the risk of deportation. VAWA has always protected this group of individuals, but the reauthorization would raise the cap on visas for battered women and sexual assault victims from 10,000 to 15,000. The additional visas would come from recaptured visas in previous years that havent been utilized.'
It is a mystery why Grassley or anyone else could think that battered gay men, lesbians or immigrants (or, for that matter, Native Americans) do not need the full protection of the law. Worse, Grassleys tactic here does not simply deny protections to these individuals, he is literally holding a bill that protects all battered women hostage in order to score a few anti-gay and anti-immigrant points.
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Grassley Holds Domestic Violence Victims Hostage To Lash Out At Gay Victims And Immigrants (Original Post)
xchrom
Feb 2012
OP
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)1. come on iowa... put old chucky out to pasture
47of74
(18,470 posts)3. I hope that lawn mowing SOB decides to retire
I hope that lawn mowing SOB decides to retire in 2016.
mitchtv
(17,718 posts)2. haters gonna hate
que sorpresa!