It has been wisely said that the "Devil’s in the details" of contracts and legislative proposals. That certainly applies to Senator Tom Daschle’s bill, S. 19, known as the "Protecting Civil Rights for All Americans Act."

S. 19, which few Americans even know about or understand, is on a fast track through the U.S. Senate without much debate or publicity. Yet, this bill doesn’t contain just one devil in the details; it contains a virtual legion of demons that will drastically change our social and political landscape for decades to come and seriously undermine our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.

Sen. Daschle’s 50-page bill is a hodgepodge of bad proposals that will do the following (and more):

• Includes "sexual orientation" as a protected behavior under federal "hate crime laws." This sets up a two-tiered system of justice. Increased penalties and more federal funds will be given to prosecute individuals who verbally or physically attack homosexuals, than for criminals who may attack heterosexuals. This is clearly unequal justice. The law will also prohibit workplace criticism of an individual based on his or her "sexual orientation." This means that a businessman could be forbidden from protesting if his male employees want to wear evening gowns and spiked heels to work. Christians who tell co-workers that the Bible condemns homosexuality could be punished for their incorrect attitudes and sent off to "sensitivity training" re-education camps. Freedom of speech and religion will die under this bill.

• Provides $400 million in fiscal year 2002 to the Legal Services Corporation to provide "indigent representation." (The bill fails to list how many millions were added to the LSC over its 2001 budget.) The LSC has consistently been used as a leftist tool for class warfare against corporate America and was used like a political action committee by Hillary Clinton when she ran this group back in the 1970s.

• Funds $1 million a year to protect abortion clinics against violence or other "unlawful" activities.

• Gives $319 million in fiscal 2002 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This is a $15 million increase from fiscal year 2001. The EEOC would function like the Thought Police to punish the non-politically correct.

• Provides unspecified sums for funding "anti-harassment" school materials that will fuel anti-Christian bigotry.

• Provides a budget increase of nearly $18 million for the Departments of Justice, Labor, Agriculture, HUD, HHS, Transportation, and the EPA to enforce compliance with "sexual orientation" laws and other civil rights rulings. Each of these agencies will then establish Thought Police units to punish criticism of homosexual behavior.

There is at least $25 million in increased spending in this budget over 2001, but this figure is far too low. Many sections in Daschle’s bill simply specify that Congress shall "appropriate such sums as may be necessary to carry out" different provisions in the bill. This is an open invitation for spending multiplied millions of tax dollars to violate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and to promote anti-Christian bigotry.

We can also expect this bill to be a gold mine for liberal activist judges who will "interpret" various sections of this legislation to promote homosexual hiring quotas, validate cross-dressing as a constitutional right, and to punish anyone who dares oppose homosexuality.

One can only wonder why protecting sodomy should consume so many of our hard-earned tax dollars. Tom Daschle’s legislation can be more accurately described as the "Piggy Bank for Homosexuals and Abortionists Act" because it will fund a massive federal assault against businessmen, children, taxpayers, and Christians who are morally opposed to sodomy and abortion on demand.

The bill is such a tangled web of evil proposals that it cannot be fixed. Just as Jesus drove the demons out of the Gadarene madman into a herd of pigs that stampeded into the ocean, this legislation needs to be driven over the cliff.

Traditional Values Coalition is an inter-denominational public policy organization comprising over 43,000 member churches. For more information call Christy Moore at (202) 547-8570. TVC, 139 C Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003. Web address: www.traditionalvalues.org.