Investor's Business Daily, May 11th, 2007
Justice: Will Democrats' effort to include sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation be expanded so that it applies to the mere criticism of protected groups? And if so, is this protecting civil rights or establishing a national thought police?
The problem with defining a crime as a hate crime is that it's a classic definition of a distinction without a difference. It says that if someone assaults you because he hates you for the color of your skin, it's deserving of more punishment than if someone assaults you because he likes the color of your money.
In embracing H.R. 1592, which expands federal hate-crime laws to prohibit violence against gays and transgender people, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said: "Hate crimes tear at the very fabric of our democracy -- that all citizens are created equal and are afforded the same freedoms and protections under the law."
But don't hate crime laws do exactly the opposite? Don't they treat some victims and some predators unequally because of who they are and what they think? Aren't otherwise equal crimes treated differently because one predator's motive might be different from another's?
House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks so. "This bill would eliminate any concept of equal justice under the law," he said, "dividing Americans into different classes of people subject to different protections under the law." Boehner also said the legislation gives the government the ability to punish "thought crimes."
Authored by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., H.R. 1592 goes beyond expanding the scope of victims covered by hate crime laws. It adds a new and potentially dangerous wrinkle by defining a victim of a hate crime as not just someone who is physically harmed. The bill now includes mere intimidation in its definition of violence. This leads to justifiable fear of infringement on freedom of speech.
Is the merely offensive going to be criminal? Should a Don Imus go to prison? Is criticizing affirmative action or opposing gay marriage a crime? Could the passengers on that US Airways flight be charged with a hate crime for putting homeland security above political correctness?
That's not so far-fetched. Republican House Whip Roy Blunt cites the precedent of the 11 people arrested in 2004 in Philadelphia simply for holding signs and reading passages out of the Bible during a gay-pride festival.
According to Blunt, their charges included "possessions of instruments of crime," meaning a bullhorn, "ethnic" intimidation (the reading of Bible passages) and "inciting a riot" by reading those passages aloud. They were charged with three separate felonies and five misdemeanors. The ACLU was nowhere to be found.
"It's called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act," said Chuck Colson, a former White House insider and founder of Prison Fellowship. "But the bill is not about hate. It's not even about crime. It's about outlawing peaceful speech -- speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong."
Colson notes that we already have laws on the books against assaulting people in general and that the need for added protection for certain groups is unnecessary. He also notes FBI data that show crimes against homosexuals in the U.S. have dropped dramatically. Out of 863,000 cases of aggravated assault in 2005, just 177 were crimes of bias against homosexuals.
Will preaching that homosexuality is a sin or opposing gay marriage now be enshrined in the federal code as an incitement to criminal activity? Some might consider that hate speech, but is it a crime?
We should be punished for what we do to one another, not what we think about one another.
