Focus and the American Family Association are repeatedly claiming that adding sexual orientation to Federal hate crime protections will be used to persecute speech from the pulpit. (ie in today’s broadcast of FNIF) Hate crimes laws protecting gay people have been in place at the state level for years now. Does anyone know of any cases where those existing laws have been used to persecute churches?
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Have hate crimes laws ever been used to prosecute any type of speech? At least in the U.S.?
Hate crimes laws covering “SEXUAL ORIENTATION” cover everyone (since everyone has a sexual orientation). FOTF and the AFA know this and are being extremely disingenous with this arguement.
Current hate crimes laws cover race and religion but I’ve yet to see any KKK members being arrested at a rally for railing against blacks or Jews.
I’ll believe Focus on the Family and the AFA’s sincerity the very minute they start campaigns to repeal hate crime protections for religion.
Also, the Supreme Court has already addressed the legality of Hate Crimes laws.
(see Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 1993)
https://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-515.ZO.html
I’d post the actual Supreme Court opinion because it knocks the crap out of Focus’ and the AFA’s current arguements but its far too long to post.
I’d suggest giving it a good read.
From what I have read, the only examples the anti-gay right can use are from foreign countries, e.g., Sweden and Canada, which do not have the same kind of free speech laws as the US.
Let’s see: same sex marriage will result in the destruction of opposite sex marriage; housing discrimination laws covering sexual orientation will result in landlords being forced to rent apartments to pedophiles, employment laws addressing sexual orientation will force schools to hire cross-dressing teachers, and now hate crimes laws will result in the prosecution of ministers.
See a pattern here? I do. The religious right loves to gay bait and claims that anything that helps glbt people will hurt “godly” people and result in their persecution. Time and time again this has been proven wrong, but time and time again they make these outrageous claims. WHY IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE DOESN’T SOMEONE IN A POSITION TO DO SO REFUTE THESE OUTRIGHT LIES AND FEARMONGERING????!!!!!
FOTF and AFA really need to be revealed for the fradulent liars that they are.
I AM WITH YOU, PHIL! There needs to be an aggressive plan to put all of their distortions out there and call them on it.
There was one instance in Philodephia last year in which five members of Repent America were arrested under the “ethnic intimidation” laws (a version of hate crime laws). The charges were dropped.
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44753
While I do think the RA folks should have been arrested for disturbing the peace (preaching through bullhorns in front of the stage at a gay pride event) I think it was a mistake to use the ethnic intimidation laws. I just gave amunition to the nuts.
As for hate crime laws, on some level I find it disconcerting to have additional penalties based on thought and opinion. However, the federal law that just passed the House of Representatives was not about hate crime PENALTIES but rather hate crime TRACKING and criminal assistance, something I can whole-heartedly support.
Yet again, the anti-ex/gay crowd are not telling the truth. Tracking hate crimes, in itself, cannot possibly end up in the arrest of ministers – inless they are involved in an actual pattern of crimes.
Lemme break it down to ya this way…
There are plenty of past examples of Scripture being used as a proscription for the compromise of equal human rights, such as in slavery, the subjugation of women.
In these instances, a person’s physical identity was used against them.
How they actually behaved had no bearing on how they were treated.
Scriptural interpretation of homosexuality is also describing what they think is a behavioral issue.
Words like abomination and unnatural in the sense as in evil or threatening, therefore the gay person is still vilified, regardless of their actual behavioral at large as well.
The mistake the faith communities are making in their moral objections is that they are not committing nearly so much energy in compromising the rights and protections that MURDERERS and ADULTERERS receive in the laws at this time.
Using contraception is morally objectionable and it’s a behavioral issue as well.
And NOT having children has no implications to society that do any damage, similar to homosexual behavior.
The ‘ONLY SEX THAT PROCREATES’ is supposed to be the accepted norm to faith communities, not for EVERYONE.
But all those heterosexuals would have to give up oral sex if it were.
And you know that ain’t happening.
Provocative, threatening or fighting words are not protected speech.
The person that utters it and causes serious problems to the person they speak of, such as gay parents losing custody of their children, straight parents abusing their gay child can be blamed on this religious speech and therefore subject to our laws against slander and libel and threat.