Subject:

{The Grip} Fw: * Unequal Treatment Under the

Law.......HATE CRIME LEGISLATION . . .

Date:

Mon, 18 Jun 2001 23:00:25 +0400

From:

"Henry Ayre" <[email protected]>

Reply‑To:

The Grip <[email protected]>

To:

The Grip <[email protected]>

And the Yids are laughing all the way

the synagogue!

HATE CRIME LEGISLATION:

UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW

Delaine Eastin, California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, has just

issued a set of 12 recommendations for dealing with alleged “hate” against

homosexuals in the public school system. If implemented, each school

district will hire a compliance officer who will locate and punish anyone

who engages in verbal, written, or physical expressions of “hate” against

homosexuals.

Eastin’s recommendations are based on a hate crimes bill passed in 1999 by

the state legislature. Under this hate crimes bill, a new category of “crime”

has been created: The “hate motivated incident.” A person is guilty of

“hate” if he “intimidates,” “interferes with,” or “oppresses” a homosexual.

This includes simple verbal expressions of opposition. If a Christian is

opposed to homosexuality on biblical grounds, and he expresses his beliefs,

he will be guilty of a “hate motivated incident,” that will be reported to the

compliance officer. He will also be taken for rehabilitation to cure him of

views.

HATE CRIME LEGISLATION:

UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW

Hate crime laws punish a person’s thoughts and beliefs, and they violate

freedom of religion and speech.

Homosexual activists are determined to use the force of law to gain social

acceptance in our culture. Their goal is to criminalize the speech of those

who believe homosexuality is a sin and sexual perversion. This assault on

free speech and religion in California will also be played out in the U.S.

Congress this year. Congress is currently considering S. 19, the “Protecting

Civil Rights for All Americans Act,” being offered by Senator Tom Daschle

(D‑SD). In fact, this is more accurately described as the “Piggy Bank for

Homosexuals and Abortionists Act” because it will provide millions to aid

the homosexual agenda and abortion clinics. This huge, complicated bill

includes the “Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2001 (LLEEA),”

sections on genetic testing, funding for the Legal Services Corporation, and

special protections for abortion clinics.

It is a “hate crimes/thought crimes” measure. If passed, it will add

homosexual behavior as a specially‑protected class under federal law. Under

this bill, a person who commits a crime of violence against a victim because

of the victim’s sexual orientation, will be charged with a felony and also

charged with committing a hate crime. In effect, a perpetrator who kills

because of the victim’s sexual behavior is to be punished more severely than

a criminal who kills someone for their money or property.

S. 19 also contains the Employment Non‑Discrimination Act (ENDA) of

2001. This is a “thought crimes/homosexual quota bill.” It will add “sexual

orientation” as a special right under federal law. Once “sexual orientation”

is considered a minority right, homosexuals can demand hiring quotas.

ENDA will provide enhanced legal protections for homosexuals,

transgenders (including cross‑dressers), Homosexuals activists equate any

opposition to their agenda as being “Fascist.”

A homosexual and others who are “perceived” to have a different sexual

orientation than heterosexuality who has been criticized for his behavior

can sue under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal laws if S. 19

passes . While the bill doesn’t directly mention “transgender,” the umbrella

term of “gender” will give special rights to these individuals.

ENDA also contains a carefully worded “hate crimes” section that forbids

any employee from criticizing a person’s sexual orientation. Under Sec 505,

“Retaliation and Coercion Prohibited,” the bill states: “A person shall not

coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual” who is

protected under this law. The person who believes he has been criticized for

his sexual behavior can sue under several federal laws, including the Civil

Rights Act of 1964.

In short, ENDA elevates a person’s sexual behavior to a federally‑protected

special right and allows the homosexual or cross‑dresser to sue an employer

or employee if that employer or co‑worker makes any negative statements

about the person’s sexual behavior or dress. Free speech will be severely

restricted if ENDA passes. A person who has real concerns about the

dangers of homosexual behavior will be silenced or face criminal charges for

his beliefs. This is a totalitarian effort that must be opposed!

There Is No Epidemic of Hate Crimes

In S. 19, under Section 102, this statement is made: “The incidence of

violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national

origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victim poses a serious

national problem.” As we will see, this statement is totally inaccurate. Crime

in the United States, 1997 (FBI crime statistics), for example, shows that

so‑called “hate crimes” constitute an extremely small percentage of overall

crime. According to the FBI, in 1997:

× Out of 20,000 murders, nine were considered hate crimes.

× Out of every 20,000 rapes, 2 were hate crimes.

× Out of every 20,000 aggravated assaults, 24 were hate crimes. In fact, the

majority of these few hate crimes are not violent at all, but are listed as

“simple assault” or “intimidation.” A person who “name calls” another

person is considered to have committed a hate crime because his “victim”

may feel “intimidated.” Name calling should not be a federal crime, but it is

under many hate crime laws.

In 1998, there were 16,914 murders committed. Of those, 13 were considered

hate crimes. The victims were all men, as were their killers. Four of these

murders were committed against homosexuals. So out of 16,914 murders in

1998, only four were considered to be hate crimes directed against

homosexuals. The latest hate crime statistics available are from 1999.

According to the FBI, in 1999 there were only 1,317 hate crimes directed

against homosexuals and many of these were simple assault or intimidation.

“Name‑calling” rates equally with an assault in hate crime statistics.

Investigative reporter Fred Dickey, writing in the Los Angeles Times

Magazine, October 22, 2000, describes the reality of hate crimes in “The

Perversion of Hate: Laws Against Hate Crimes Are An Idea Gone Sour.

Prosecutors Apply Them Unfairly and the List of ‘Special Victims’ Keeps

Growing.”

According to Dickey, news reports in 1999 in Los Angeles screamed that the

city’s hate crimes had risen by 11.7% from 1998. The implication was that

the city was experiencing an epidemic of hate crimes. But Dickey points out

that in Los Angeles County, an area with 10 million people, there were only

859 hate crimes committed. Most of these were gang related and only 98

resulted in felony charges. This is hardly an epidemic. The statistics tell the

story: There is no epidemic of hate crimes directed against homosexuals or

against any other ethnic groups. Yet liberal politicians are anxious to pass

onerous legislation that will stifle freedom of speech, freedom of

association, and religion in the name of protecting homosexuals from “hate

crimes” — which may include nothing more serious than name calling.

If politicians are truly concerned about hate and violence against

homosexuals, they should read Men Who Beat The Men Who Love Them by

homosexual researchers David Island and Patrick Letellier. According to

these activists, domestic violence within homosexual partnerships accounts

for as many as 650,000 incidents of domestic violence. As Island and

Letellier note: “The probability of violence occurring in a gay couple is

mathematically double the probability of that in a heterosexual couple ¼

we believe as many as 650,000 gay men may be victims of domestic violence

each year in the United States.” (Page 14) If politicians truly wish to deal

with violence against homosexuals, perhaps they should pass legislation

banning same‑sex cohabitation.

This would greatly reduce the amount of violence against homosexuals.

Regrettably, politicians are more interested in caving in to homosexual

political pressure, than dealing with facts. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly

Potter, writing in Hate Crimes: Criminal Law & Identity Politics, note that

hate crime laws are actually aimed at criminalizing a person’s personal

opinions and beliefs. The authors note that the term “hate crime” is really

not about hate at all, but about a person’s beliefs about right and wrong.

According to Jacobs and Potter, “By linking hate speech prohibitions to

generic criminal law, many well‑meaning advocacy groups and politicians

seek to shake a fist at the kind of ideas, opinions, and degenerate

personalities that ‘right‑thinking’ people abhor. But we must consider

whether punishing crimes motivated by politically un‑popular beliefs more

severely than crimes motivated by other factors itself violates our First

Amendment traditions.”

What about the bat‑wielding bigot who attacks a homosexual and kills him?

Should he be convicted not only for killing the victim but for his thoughts?

Why should he receive a stiffer sentence for killing a homosexual than if he

had beaten a woman to death for her purse? One can reasonably assume

that he had hatred in his heart for the woman. There is no loving way to

beat someone to death. Yet hate crime advocates would add a more severe

penalty on to his sentence because of his thought crime against the

homosexual.

Hate Crimes Violate Equal Protection:

In March of 2001, the West Virginia Troopers Association went public with

a demand that the state repeal its hate crime law. According to the trooper’s

executive director, David Moye, “We as police officers want to treat

everybody equally. I don’t think the public would expect us to distinguish

between a black person or a white one or a handicapped person or a

non‑handicapped, gay or non‑gay.” According to Moye, the West Virginia

hate crime law singles out specific groups of people for special treatment.

Moye noted that his mother is Hispanic. Yet, says Moye, “I don’t think

there should be anything enhanced because someone commits malicious

wounding against her rather than anyone else. Malicious wounding is mali

cious wounding.”

Hate crime laws provide special rights for favored groups or, in the case of

homosexuality, over a politically favored sexual behavior. This is unequal

protection under the law and should be vigorously opposed. Daniel E. Troy,

a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute testified before the House

Committee on the Judiciary in August of 1999 against proposed hate crime

legislation. Troy told the committee that the fastest way for a group to

achieve political power and status is to declare itself to be a victim. Troy

writes: “Status as a disfavored group paves the way for special protections

and special handouts. Thus, hate crimes legislation makes crimes into

political foot‑balls, further polarizing America on the basis of group and

identity politics.” Troy believes that special interest groups want to be

proclaimed as victims so they can have special laws, special handouts, and

special treatment.

Hate Crime Laws Are Bad Policy

There are numerous reasons why hate crime laws are bad public policy and

are unneeded. Here are several reasons:

Hate Crime Laws Criminalize Thoughts and Feelings: The effort to

create a new category of crime, the so‑called hate crime, is actually an

effort to punish indi‑viduals who stray from the current politically

correct orthodoxy. California’s school children will soon learn what it

is like to have their freedom of speech and religion suppressed by hate

crime compliance officers. Employers and employees will also lose

freedom of speech and religion if S. 19 passes. Typically, hate crime

laws, such as included in S. 19, have prohibitions against

“intimidating” or “coercing” an individual. This could be as simple a

thing as quoting the Bible to a homosexual co‑worker or leaving a

tract about sexual orientation on his desk. The Wall Street Journal

recently decried the tyranny of hate crime laws. As the Journal

observed in “The Hate Politics,” Like all restrictions on free speech,

bans of “racist” or “homophobic” expression rests on a slippery slope.

Some Christian denominations believe that homosexuality is a sin. Are

their clerics to be silenced by law because this view is unacceptable? ¼

We aren’t there yet. But when people can be given additional time in

jail for what they were thinking while committing a crime we are

approaching rule by a thought police. A good many people, even some

supporters of hate‑crime legislation, might find that a hateful outcome.

Political scientist Ronald J. Pestritto, a professor at St. Vincent

College in Pennsylvania and an Adjunct Fellow with the Claremont

Institute has observed that hate crime legislation is a political fad that

“seeks to criminalize all feelings, thoughts, or attitudes that run

contrary to the trends of the day.”

Writing in “The Ideology of Hate Crimes,” Pestritto says hate crime

laws assume that “...there are more serious crimes out there than

murder, or the taking of human life.” The advocates of hate crime laws

believe that “crimes motivated by animus toward homosexuals must be

con‑sidered the most hateful of all. Accordingly, we see that

anti‑homosexual murder is considered worse than other kinds of

murder, yet beating another human being unconscious with a brick

and dancing with glee about it, as several Los Angeles rioters did live

on television a few years ago, is hardly considered a crime at all since it

was motivated by rage over the racist Rodney King trial verdict.”

Authors Jacobs and Potter argue against hate crime laws because

“hate” cannot be accurately defined. No one should receive a tougher

sentence because of his thoughts..AEI scholar Daniel Troy rightly fears

that our nation’s emphasis on creating racial, religious, gender, and

other special interest groups will further divide our nation rather than

unite us with common concerns. In his testimony before Congress,

Troy quoted liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger who decries

separatism because it “nourishes prejudices, magnifies, differences,

and stirs antagonisms.”

Daniel Troy notes that although he is Jewish, he does not insist that because

another Jew is harmed, that his personal grievances must be written into

law. He says that everyone belongs to a group, but the way we should deal

with crimes is to penalize criminal conduct, not provide special legal

protections for an aggrieved group. “...we should not give greater legal

effect to the grievances of one group over those of another. Indeed, by

further forcing society into groups based on permanent status—racial,

gender, reli‑gious, etc. — hate crime laws ultimately erode the core unifying

values of our country. Instead of developing a civil society in which groups

form and disband to advocate ever‑changing interests, this sort of

legislation encourages the maintenance of permanent groups along lines

that should, ultimately, be irrelevant under the law.”

Hate crimes, notes educator Jonathan Kozol, “are symptomatic of society’s

Balkanization. They are futile in the long run. We cannot rebuild society by

legislative penalties for insensitive acts and utterances.” Journalist Fred

Dickey observes, “A large stone in the foundation of the American dream is

the idea that every person is equal in citizenship and that every life should

be equally valued and protected. No one should accept less, but is anyone

entitled to more?”

Hate Crime Laws Should Not Grant Special Rights to

Homosexuals

As we have seen, there is no epidemic of hate crimes in the United States;

hate crime laws criminalize a person’s feel‑ings or thoughts; violate free

speech; and create a permanent “victim class” that receives special rights

not afforded other citizens. Hate crime laws are frequently expanded to

include so‑called “hate speech” or actions that might be perceived by a

person to be hateful. This could include sharing one’s faith in the office with

a homosexual co‑worker or a child writing a report in school that is critical

of homosexual behavior. Hate crime laws should not protect a deviant

sexual behavior that many Americans oppose.

Consider the highly publicized murder of homosexual college student

Matthew Shepard. The killers, Russell A. Henderson and Aaron J.

McKinney have already been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Should extra penalties be applied because of what Henderson and

McKinney thought when they were killing Shepard? No one brutally

murders another person out of love. Every violent murder is

hate‑motivated. As National Journal editor Michael Kelly observed in a

Washington Post column in October of 1998, what Henderson and

McKinney did was a terrible thing, but “would it have been less terrible if

Shepard had not been gay? If Henderson and McKinney beat Shepard to

death because they hated him personally, not as a member of a group,

should the law treat them more lightly? Yes, say hate‑crime laws.”

Kelly rightly observes that, “Hate crime laws require the state to treat one

physical assault differently from the way it would treat another—solely

because the state has decided that one motivation for assaulting a person is

more heinous than another.” U.S. News & World Report columnist John

Leo agrees. In a 1998 column, Leo noted that hate crime laws are ostensibly

created to provide special protections for mi‑nority groups. Yet this violates

the principle of equality under the law. Leo says, “Equal protection should

mean one law for all, pursued evenhandedly regardless of our differences,

not separate laws invented because of them.”

“Hate crime laws create a legal apartheid or a new form of segregation

where individuals are separate and not equal under our system of justice,”

says Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, Chairman of Traditional Values Coalition.

“Our laws should not provide extra legal protections for someone simply

because of the way he engages in sex.” Hate Crime Laws Balkanize Law and

Society: Hate crime laws create a legal apartheid ¼ where individuals are

separate and not equal under our system of justice. — Rev. Louis P.

Sheldon

S P E C I A L R E P O R T Traditional Values Special Report / P.O. Box

940 / Anaheim, CA 92815 / (714) 520‑0300 / 139 C Street SE, Washington,

DC 20003 / (202) 547‑8570 Email: [email protected]; TVC

web site: www.traditionalvalues.org <http://www.traditionalvalues.org>

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