President Obama: "I can announce after more than a decade, this (hate crimes) bill is set to pass and I will sign it into law."

The president spoke these words last Saturday night to the largest homosexual advocacy organization in the country.

As even the president acknowledges, with your help we have successfully beaten back attempts to pass so-called "hate crimes" legislation since the 1990s.

However, as the president points out, this legislation is now closer to becoming law than it ever has been.

The House passed this bill last Thursday, and our last chance to stop this dangerous bill is when your senators vote on it this week.

Here's what wrong with the "hate crimes" bill:

• It criminalizes thought. For the first time in American history, criminal penalties are being attached to thoughts, not actions. Perpetrators will receive extra punishment not for what they did but for what they were thinking when they did it.
• It endangers freedom of religion and speech. Everywhere in the world "hate crimes" laws have gone into effect, they have quickly been used to harass, intimidate, silence and punish people of faith. Your pastor could go to jail if even a tenuous link could be established between a sermon on homosexuality and some act of violence.
• It destroys the American principle of equality under the law. It creates a judicial caste system, in which some victims get more legal protection than others. It actively discriminates against heterosexuals by giving them less protection in law than victims who engage in non-normative sexual behaviors.
• In a devious maneuver by Democrats, it's attached to a Defense Appropriations bill. Our military deserves a stand-alone vote on funding.