Hate crime

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A "hate crime" is a liberal invention to try to criminalize politically incorrect attitudes, by making some crimes "worse" than others based on the views of the person committing the crime. The goal of this rewriting of criminal law is to create special advantages for those promoting a homosexual lifestyle and other favored liberal groups. The ultimate goal may be to criminalize the Bible, or at least marginalize it.

Liberals will often demand prosecution as a "hate crime" whenever the victim was a member of a group politically favored by the liberal agenda, regardless of whether there was any evidence of actual hate for the group by the perpetrator. '

Free speech and the Homosexual Agenda

Liberals promote hate crime legislation to legitimize certain lifestyles by declaring them to be protected by law, and to chill free speech that criticizes those lifestyles.

Opponents charge that hate crime and hate speech rules amount to an erosion of First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion, free speech, and freedom of press. In particular, they object to rules or laws which equate condemnation of sin with prejudice.

Hate crime legislation imposes additional punishment for crimes held to be motivated by such "prejudice".

Hate crime legislation is a stepping stone for a lifestyle to become protected under anti-discrimination laws.

The gay rights movement currently attempts to equate racism and anti-Semitism with the condemnation of homosexual lifestyle. They claim that, like race, sexual orientation is 100% inherited and immutable but there are studies that question this claim [citation needed].

Nonetheless, the strategy of activists is to insist that condemnation of sin is a type of "prejudice" equivalent to a civil rights violation. They want people of conscience, who already condemn antisemitism and racism, to regard any critique of homosexuality as an expression of "hate".

There is a misinterpretation of a sermon by Jesus, who told people not to "hate" their enemies used in favor of the argument. What hate crimes legislation ignores is that Jesus never hesitated to condemn sin and frequently criticized wrongdoers.

A ladder to legislate social acceptance and promotion of a lifestyle would be as follows:

  • Bottom Rung: hate crime legislation to recognize and accept the lifestyle.
  • Middle Rung: anti-discrimination legislation to favor and promote the lifestyle.
  • Top Rung: affirmative action to fully promote the lifestyle. [citation needed]

Additionally, some have argued that hate crimes should be applied in extreme cases, but that existing legislation is far too broad. For instance, they argue that merely telling a homosexual that he will go to hell if he does not repent should not be a "hate crime", but that actually killing that person (which in the opinion of the murderer, would send them to hell) should be classified as a "hate crime". This is generally seen as a more moderately conservative to centrist view on the issue.

Legislative history

The House of Representatives passed a hate crime bill on April 29, 2009, in order to give special protection to homosexual behavior, and to intimidate Bible-based criticism of it.[1] This bill has led many to be fearful. To quote OneNewsNow "This so-called 'hate crimes' bill will be used to lay the legal foundation and framework to investigate, prosecute, and persecute pastors, business owners, Bible teachers, Sunday School teachers, youth pastors -- you name it -- or anyone else whose actions are based upon and reflect the truth found in the Bible."[2]


Then Speaker of the House for the 2007-2008 Congress, Nancy Pelosi, sought to pass hate crime legislation proposed in the prior session of Congress in H.R.3132. H.R. 1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 was then introduced by Democrats in the new session 110th Congress that began in 2007.

In July 2007, Ted Kennedy bypassed a committee vote and attached hate crimes legislation to a massive defense appropriation bill requested by the President, in an effort to compel him to sign the hate crimes legislation.[3]

Claims of Hate Crimes

It is claimed that about 1100 hate crimes against homosexuals or their property occurred in 2004.[4] [5] But most of those offenses occurred against property rather than individuals, often the result of drugs or alcohol. Only a tiny percentage even involved aggravated assault or worse, and those classifications are not based on any proof at trial.[citation needed] 74% of hate crimes are either crimes against property (e.g., theft, vandalism or graffiti) or the vague term "intimidation".[6]

The world-renowned pathologist Dr. William Eckert wrote regarding homosexual homocides the following:

Equally high is the number of homicides, many probably related to transient attachments, which often lead to suspicion, jealousy, and murder. When murder does occur it is exceptionally brutal with an overkill appearance... Overkill, as it is seen in homosexual and lesbian murders, is certainly a form of sadistic crime. In these instances multiple stabbing and other brutal injuries...are common findings...[7]
The First Baptist Church in Gravois Mills was vandalized and threatened by homosexual activists and received obscene phone calls. An FBI agent refused to list the incident as a hate crime.

However, Dallas Drake, President of the American Society of Criminology claims that homophobia is the general cause of these murders. [8]

Some feel national statistics regarding homosexuals committing hate crimes against heterosexuals may be underreported. For example, the First Baptist Church in Gravois Mills was vandalized and threatened by homosexual activists and received obscene phone calls. An FBI agent refused to list the incident as a hate crime. The incident involved an anti-homosexuality Bible verse on the church's sign.[9]

The Center for Reclaiming America cited the following account of how a hate crime statute was egregiously applied to an ex-homosexual:

In Madison, Wisconsin, a recovered homosexual who had left the “gay” lifestyle to start a family got into a heated discussion with an open homosexual about homosexuality at a gas station. The ex-“gay” man, David Ott, was holding his child in his arms during the entire incident, and neither man touched the other. The homosexual activist later told police he had felt threatened by Ott, and local prosecutors charged the man with “disorderly conduct” with a “hate crimes” enhancement.

The “hate crime” aspect, stemming from Ott’s belief that homosexuality is morally wrong, raised the potential fine from $1,000 to $10,000, and jail time went up from a possible 90 days to one year. Fearing the possibility of substantial jail time, Ott settled, and received 50 hours of community service plus a mandatory attendance at “tolerance” sessions conducted by lesbians at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A ground rule for the session was the premise that homosexual behavior is not immoral.

The entire process cost Ott almost $7,000 in legal fees.[10]

Another example of an alleged anti-homosexual "hate crime" occurred at Columbia University in 2005, when two drunken students scrawled racist and anti-homosexual symbols on a dormitory wall. Initially charged with crimes carrying possible 4-year jail sentences, the charges were later dropped in exchange for some sensitivity training.[11] "I am pretty sure [the perpetrator] thought he was playing a joke," said one dormitory resident about the incident.[12]

There are very few anti-homosexual murders. The most publicized incident, the murder of Matthew Shepard, was the result of severe drug abuse. After the defense attorney failed to exonerate the killers with an argument of self-defense against homosexual advances, the lead killer admitted in jail that homosexuality had nothing to do with his drug-induced murder:[13]

Asked [by ABC News] directly whether [the lead killer] targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, "No. I did not. ... I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."
But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely?
Prosecutor Rerucha attributes McKinney's rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. "The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs," Rerucha said.
Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells "20/20" the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior.
"In the first weeks after you've stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It's completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off" Rawson said.
"If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today," Rerucha said.

So what was the basis for the claim that this was a hate crime? According to ABC News, "Prosecutor Rerucha recalls that Shepard's friends ... contacted his office. Rerucha told '20/20,' "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed."[14]

Conversely, threats and vandalism by homosexual activists are typically not treated as hate crimes. For example, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has refused to investigate threats made by homosexual activists against a Missouri Baptist Convention church in the Lake of the Ozarks area."[15]

Criminalizing the Gospel

Art Moore posted this at WorldNet Daily:

"We don't want to promote hatred against anyone and are opposed to violence for whatever reason," said Bruce Clemenger, head of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Centre for Faith and Public Life. "Our concern, though is that ... courts have not distinguished between the identity of the person and the activity. So sexual orientation refers to both the sexual disposition as well as the activity."
But homosexual activists contend such a distinction cannot be made with homosexuals any more than it can with matters of race or ethnic origin.
"The argument of separating the person from the behavior is their concept," insisted Kim Vance, president of Ottawa-based EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere.
"In reality they are the same thing," Vance said in a WND interview. "That's language that they use to justify [opposition], but it's language that we don't agree with." [16]

What this means is the gay rights activists want the government to agree with their primary claim, i.e., that homosexuality is a matter of identity - not a behavior, and certainly not a matter of choice.

Hate Speech Outside the United States

At least nine Western countries have made it a crime[17] to deny the historical reality of the Nazi Holocaust (the genocide of 6 million Jews and 5 million others). The idea is that it is "hateful" to the survivors and to the relatives of the victims to pretend that this painful episode never occurred.

Some people argue that being Jewish is a matter of race and thus unchangeable, and that being homosexual is likewise immutable. On these grounds they go on to assert that criticizing a person for being homosexual is just as "hateful" as denying the Holocaust. A serious movement has begun to brand criticism of homosexuality as hate speech and thus to outlaw it. It is succeeding in liberal countries of Europe and has spread to the United States. However, others feel that Holocaust denial is a different situation than criticism of homosexuals. Even those against homosexuals freely admit that some were killed in the Holocaust as a result of their sexual orientation. Denying this would be completely different than merely denying that their sexuality was "natural".

Objectivism, libertarianism, and "Hate crimes"

Objectivists and libertarians argue against the notion of hate crimes for minorities in general, saying that the only "true" minority is the smallest possible one, the individual. Therefore, killing any individual is a crime against a "minority" - the victim. Additionally, libertarians argue that it is wrong to punish an individual solely for a belief that led him to kill somebody. In other words, although libertarians feel it is wrong to murder someone because they are black, homosexual, or any other claimed minority, it is also equally wrong to murder someone because they are wearing a hat. However, even the most liberal individuals do not claim that the latter should be a hate crime.

See also

References

  1. http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53S8IM20090429
  2. http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=494798
  3. Kennedy cramming hate crimes into defense bill 'Shameless attempt to push homosexual agenda ... by exploiting soldiers', Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com, July 17, 2007.
  4. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 2004
  5. FBI, Crime in the United States 2004, Table 4 Offense Type by Bias Motivation
  6. FBI, Crime in the United States 2004 Table 2.33 Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Offense Type
  7. Tedeschi CG, Eckert W, Tedeschi LG, eds. Forensic medicine; vol 2. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1977:962
  8. http://www.citypages.com/2009-04-08/news/rommal-bennett-s-trial-revisits-spate-of-gay-murders-in-the-twin-cities/2
  9. Pastor finds FBI unresponsive to homosexual activists' threats, Bob Baysinger, Baptist Press, Nov 13, 2003.
  10. http://test.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/fastfacts/HateCrimes2.pdf
  11. Ruggles Vandalism Case Dismissed, Elizabeth Kraushar and Eleazar David Meléndez, Columbia Spectator, 6/12/06.
  12. Hate Crime Rocks Columbia’s Campus, Noah S. Bloom, The Harvard Crimson, December 13, 2005.
  13. New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder, 20/20, ABC News. Retrieved 22 July 2007.
  14. Id.
  15. Pastor finds FBI unresponsive to homosexual activists' threats, Bob Baysinger, Baptist Press, Nov 13, 2003.
  16. The Bible as 'hate literature'?, By Art Moore, WorldNetDaily.com, October 21, 2002.
  17. Revisionists in France and Germany have been heavily fined for their views" (Weber). Other countries that have different laws against Holocaust denial include Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Canada, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Holocaust Denial

External links