We seem to be eating ourselves alive.
A WorldNetDaily article from March describes the concerns some US religious groups have over a particular piece of ‘hate crime’ legislation. The Bill in question this time around is H.R. 254. The concern is that the legislation “could be used to make criminals of those whose religious faith doesn’t endorse homosexuality” and that it essentially opens the door to a kind of thought policing.
While there is a strong strain of faith based persecution complex in the article– Christians are in no danger of being persecuted in this country but, in fact, typically do the persecuting– mostly I agree with them. This legislation is a bad idea. The bill in question, the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, is effectively an attempt to legislate against particular attitude, particular beliefs. That is really quite frightening.
This bill does not stand alone though.
105th Congress: H.R. 3081: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
106th Congress: H.R. 77: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
106th Congress: H.R. 1082: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
107th Congress: H.R. 74: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
108th Congress: H.R. 80: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
109th Congress: H.R. 259: Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Status: Dead)
Thankfully, those bills are all dead but not all of them are. I’ve already commented on H.R. 1592, the Matthew Shepard Act.
What this means in no uncertain terms is that prosecution of a crime is at least partially dependent upon the opinions, the convictions, and the beliefs, of the person who committed the crime. There is no way to reasonably spin this as anything other than prosecution for ‘thought crime’. The law cannot concern itself with the underlying motivation for the crime, except for the issue of self-defense.
And…
Yes, these acts are tragic. Yes, it is bigotry. But I cannot support ‘extra’ prosecution because of the opinions the criminals might hold. It is fundamental to my political principles, and I thought it was fundamental to the spirit that birthed the United States, that people get to believe whatever they want. This law spits in the face of that idea.
I took a bit of abuse over that one, but I stand by the sentiments. The law has got to focus on actions, not on the contents of people’s heads. The latter is nothing less than thought crime legislation. I have criticized the weird logic of gay hate, against some very peculiar paranoia in several forms, and defended gay marriage– not once but twice and three times and four times and more times in fact. But I cannot get behind thought crime laws.
Law must 1) protect a person’s right to do whatever that person desires so long as 2) that behavior does not infringe upon another person’s ability to do the same. What a person thinks is not part of the equation. And it mustn’t be allowed to become part of the equation.
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