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SACRAMENTO – A Bay Area assemblyman wants to ban from service police officers and police officer candidates who are members of hate groups or have used hate speech in the past, even in “a private discussion forum” online.
Article by Richard Stenger from Press California.
Yet the definition of a “hate group” and “hate speech” used by Assemblyman Ash Kalra’s (D – San Jose) new bill, AB 655, is incredibly broad. Not only does it include armed militia groups and white supremacists promoting “domestic terrorism,” it also includes police officers expressing conservative religious or political views on abortion, marriage, and gender or with membership in a political party or church that does.
One legal expert said the bill would “usher in a new era of McCarthyism” where Muslim, Catholic, Evangelicals, and even registered Republicans would be blacklisted from law enforcement jobs.
‘Inexplicable, unwarranted and unprecedented attack’
“Under the guise of addressing police gangs, the bill at the same time launches an inexplicable, unwarranted, and unprecedented attack on peaceable, conscientious officers who happen to hold conservative political and religious views,” wrote Pacific Justice Institute Senior Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds.
“Indeed, this is one of the most undisguised and appalling attempts we have ever seen, in more than 20 years of monitoring such legislation, on the freedom of association and freedom to choose minority viewpoints.”
According to a bill fact sheet provided by Kalra’s office, AB 655 is needed to root out “extremist infiltration” into our police departments as evidenced by “the apparent cooperation, participation, and support of some law enforcement,” gave to insurrectionists during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.
The document goes on to say that California sheriff departments all over the state have been “plagued by texting, email, and social media scandals where officers exchanged racist and homophobic messages.”
Definition of hate speech is alarmingly broad
AB 655 would require police candidates to receive a background check for “official membership in a hate group, participation in hate group activities, or other public expressions of hate.”
Public complaints of employed police officers would result in the same investigation, “and if sustained, could lead to termination.”
So how does broad is the bill’s definition of a hate group and hate speech? Here is the definition from the text of AB 655:
“‘Hate group’ means an organization that, based upon its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities, supports, advocates for, or practices the denial of constitution constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”
AB 655 defines hate speech with similar language. It states: “‘Public expression of hate’ means any explicit expression, either on duty or off duty and while identifying oneself as, or reasonably identifiable by others as, a peace officer, in a public forum, on social media including in a private discussion forum, in writing, or in speech, as advocating or supporting the denial of constitution constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”
According to McReynolds, the breath of these definitions raise serious questions. Is the Catholic Church a hate group because it advocates rejecting the “constitutional rights of women to obtain an abortion?” Are all the churches that voiced support for Proposition 8, defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman, “hate groups” because they “opposed LGBTQ constitutional rights to marry?” Are Muslims banned from being officers because they attend a mosque that has “spoken out against homosexuality or gender equality?”
Support for traditional family could bar service
What about the California Republican Party that still has a family blank in its platform that says it “support[s] the two-parent family as the best environment for raising children, and therefore believe that it is important to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.”
The platform also says that, “The Supreme Court’s ruling [on same-sex marriage] cannot and must not be used to coerce a church or religious institution into performing marriages that their faith does not recognize.” It would seem the Republican Party itself is a hate group according to AB 655.
“The rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been the topic of intense political debate for 200 years, and especially over the last several decades since the Supreme Court found a right to abortion in the Constitution in 1973,” said Greg Burt, Director of Capitol Engagement with the California Family Council.
“Should the state now ban from public service qualified, fair-minded people who happen to hold religious or political views that conflict with controversial Supreme Court decisions on marriage and abortion? This is a blatantly unconstitutional violation of religious liberty and freedom of speech. It is also a tyrannical abuse of power from a politician seeking to ruin the lives of those he disagrees with.”
AB 655 is scheduled to be heard before the Assembly Public Safety Committee on April 6, 2021.
‘The Purge’ by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us
Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.
For the last few months, NOQ Report has appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.
It wasn’t just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from “woke” Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. One of our YouTube accounts was banned and another has been suspended. Facebook “fact-checks” everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss “taboo” topics.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can’t say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancelation, but we’d rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media’s lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they’ve convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.
The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects. These questions are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting cancelled.
There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are on track to be short by about $5300 per month in order to maintain operations.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. We had 5,657,724 sessions on our website from November, 2020, through February, 2021. Our intention is to elevate that to higher levels this year by focusing on a strategy that relies on free speech rather than being beholden to progressive Big Tech companies.
During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we’d like to be completely free from them. That doesn’t mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.
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