The serious danger of so-called "Hate Crime" laws

What do you get when you mix Liberal judges unwilling to give realistic sentences to violent criminals and a rationalized hatred on the part of many in the court system as well as in law enforcement against traditional values and Christianity in particular. The demand for "Hate Crime" legislation that actually produces more hate crimes than it prevents.

Conservatives were in almost complete agreement that the two hooligans that murdered Matthew Shepherd should have been executed, yet while using the case as a rallying cry for more and more "Hate Crime" legislation, Liberals were satisfied that the two cretins only got life in prison. Does that make sense at all? No, but the latest attempt at codifying Thought Crimes makes even less.

House Resolution 1592, currently in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary reads...

The incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim poses a serious national problem.

Really? When a man shouting anti-Christian rantings shoots up a church in Fort Worth, killing 9 church members, it's not considered a hate crime. However when a woman throws an asparagus at two homosexual men while shouting anti-homosexual slur, it is considered a hate crime.

When self-professed satanists burned down several churches across Alabama, authorities refused to call it a hate crime, but when a high school student leaves a ham sandwich on a table that Moslem students uses next, it's considered a hate crime and the student is suspended.

If it's a serious national problem, why isn't it treated that way when the victims are Christians? What good is a law punishing bias, if it's used in such a blatantly biased way?

We have more than enough laws to deal with criminals, what we need are ways to stop judges, prosecutors, police and even Congressmen from abusing the laws and twisting them to serve their own purposes. We need leadership that respects religious freedom as freedom, and not treat the First Amendment as a mandate to silence those whoever in power happens to disagree with. We need leadership that respects traditional values and will not allow special interest groups to redefine the sincerely held beliefs and principles of most Americans as "Hate Crimes".

It was just about a year ago, at a Promise Keepers Conference in Broward County Florida, that a local police officer took it upon himself to confiscate petitions from the booth run by the Family Policy Research Council. The reason, he disagreed with the intent of the petition. He initially claimed that the Bank Atlantic Center did not allow petitions, yet then launched into a religious discussion, claiming that the petitions—to maintain traditional marriage—were unchristian because, the Bible never said homosexuality is wrong. He was using his authority as a police officer to enforce his own personal moral beliefs. Even when the people in charge of the Promise Keepers Conference told him the petitions were completely legal, he still insisted he they were not. One of those he was confronting, Florida Family Policy Council President and General Counsel John Stemberger, finally took the petitions, returned them to the table and more or less dared the officer to arrest him. By that time four other local police officers had arrived and joined the first in attempts to mock and ridicule the Christians there. The officers only stopped when officials for the Bank Atlantic Center itself had to come down and tell the officers to leave people alone.

After filing a complaint, the FPRC was told that the officers were "reprimanded" but no one outside the police department knows what form, if any, that reprimand took.

Those officers violated the law, abused their authority and in such an open, aggressive and blatant way that it was clear they knew they would get away with it.

Liberals are complaining that some criminals aren't being punished enough, therefore law enforcement and the courts should be given more power. Reality shows that the Liberals themselves have stood in the way of realistic punishment, and law enforcement and the courts are often those actually committing "crimes of bias" and never being held accountable for it.

Hate Crime laws make as much sense as wrapping up the head of someone with a broken leg. It's not addressing the real problem, and creating more.

Posted by Danny Carlton at May 26, 2008 7:26 AM