New DVD Counters Thought Crimes Laws

Tony: Exactly why do we need to "speak out against homosexual behavior"? Should we also speak out explicitly against pride, gluttony, or deception? What other sins should we be "speaking out against"?

This faux-persecution talk is damaging and insensitive to those who face real persecution. D. James Kennedy couldn't be more wrong in his assertion that churches will be shut down. Any church that wishes to avoid this sort of "persecution" can easily avoid it by giving up its tax-exempt status. And I don't recall reading in my Bible anything about a tax-exempt status being part of the Gospel.

So is it ok for a Christian preacher to speak out and lambast homosexual behavior to incite a "hate-crime" but not right for a Muslim preacher to lambast our democracy to incite terrorism against Americans? You can't have it both ways. Words hurt and kill and people who have influence should be careful what they say and to whom.

All this fuss, and yet... no law has been even proposed in the US which would criminalise religious speech.

Even Phelps, with his calls to execute all homosexuals, would not be doing anything illegal under the proposed hate-crimes laws. He constantly says that homosexuals are all violent spouse-beating pedophile america-haters who want to take over the world and sodomise babies... and even as he says all that, he is not doing anything even slightly illegal. So, is the King of Hate can get away, then speech isn't under threat :>

The proposed hate crimes law applies, by its terms, only to "bodily injury"--but, here in Texas and, I suspect, elsewhere, the Penal Code definition of "bodily injury" includes ANY "physical pain," however slight, and even recklessly touching a peace officer is a felony.

I have no syumpathy whatsoever for those who attack "gays" or those they perceive as "gay," or, for that matter, anyone else. Between living in Oak Lawn, a nice and convenient area of Dallas where a lot of "gay" people also choose to live, and having a congenital uncontrollable eye movement, I have personally experienced, and known a lawyer suffering from what I think was MS or ALS who also suffered, harassment, threats, and assaults because we were very foolishly perceived as "gay." Parostitutes and their pimps also harassed me and called me "gay" because, not believing in that, I spurned their offers, even while carrying heavy bags of groceries home, leading me to ask why anyone would expect anyone to do that so close to home, though I married late and was single at that time. I have also seen young women harassed as allegedly lesbian, though in some cases I knew they were not, for refusing propositions and advances.

The federal courts have fouled up the law of terroristic threats horribly, including holding that a prosecution for maliciously sending a new mother baby casket ads with notes indicating that she would be needing one, and other threats of unidentified dire events or consequences, were protected by the First Amendment, a theory that would have horrified the Framers and adopters thereof. Somebody needs to write, pass, and get the current Supreme Court to validate a good one, but, often, it is like Potter Stewart's comment on porn, "I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it."

According to St. Paul's writings included in the New Testament, the early Christian church, which held homosexual and heterosexual promiscuity equally sinful, had an active and successful outreach and ministry to those who had been in the homosexual lifestyle, along with others who had practiced or were practicing sins that would be more tempting or understandable to straight guys like me--Jesus Christ and Jimmy Carter pointed out that looking at a woman lustfully violated the relevant Commandment, too.

Interestingly, this proposed law does not cover hate crimes, which I have experienced, including terroristic threats, brake tampering, computer and file tampering, arson, etc., motivated by my having taken a stand against incestuous child sexual abuse including some committed by politicians of both parties whose daughters, sisters, and nieces I found myself representing.
It would also appear not to protect those attacked for exercise of First Amendment rights including the right to argue for or against abortion, etc.

Texas laws, and federal criminal laws and sentencing guidelines, already offer enough range of punishment to cover aggravating factors, including bias, in real cases.

There are, of course, already federal laws, going back to the 1860s, against criminal violations of, and conspiracy to violate, Constitutional rights.

Except for crimes on federal terrotory, the proposed law would have to rest on the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 5 thereof authorizing Congress to pass laws to protect civil rights. Unfortunately, because the disabled were not explicitly mentioned in the Fourteenth Amendment, courts from the federal district courts to the Supreme Court have held substantial parts of the federal ADA unconstitutional, and the Department of Justice is still fighting other such challenges, particularly with regard to civil suits over civil rights against state government guaranteed by the ADA. If the disabled are treated this badly by the courts under the ADA, contrary to the intent expressed by Republican Bob Dole and Democrat Steny Hoyer, now house leader, the validity of this proposed "hate crimes" law will be in litigation by defendants forever.

How many routine cases to we really want to move to federal court? They passed a federal church-burning law in the 1990s and I saw it invoked in cases that turned out to have nothing whatsoever to do with First Amendment or other civil rights, religious prejudice, etc.

Even today, how many victims of assaults will really want to have to prove in court that they are in fact "gay" or perceived that way by their assailants as an element of keeping the case in federal court? I have a picture of trying to prove that someone was targeted for a drive-by shooting, in which no words were exchanged and heard, for this reason or reasons, given that the defendants rarely testify and would never do so in that situation.

The way this is drawn, a wife killing her husband because she discovered he was really "gay" and had a "gay" "lover" would face more serious charges, in federal court, while if she did it because she caught him with another woman--and some are unfaithful with both--she would face what might or might not be a longer sentence in state or federal court depending upon what state she was in.

The inciting, aiding and abetting, and accessory to hate crime based on alleged actual or perceived sexual orientation cases are where, as you note, we can get into awful messes trying to guess at the intent of someone's speech inciting or encouraging an assault, etc., after someone else commits an assault.

I can't understand why any conservative ideals are attacked. I get such negative responses about anything I say that sounds conservative. Maybe thought control (political correctness)is already present and the masses are not even aware of it. Why are gays so afraid that the Bible tells them that immoral sex is sin. I believe that God is bigger than any group or groups in support of sin. The wages of sin are death. There is proof that immoral sexual behavior is the leading cause of AIDS and other STD's. I personally don't want to pay for the health care, which is being forced on me by taxation, of preventable diseases. The Bible speaks out against all sins as mentioned in a previous comment. The legislative body of the government is focusing on sexual orientation.

This is truly foolish. I'm appalled that FRC would think that its members and followers are so stupid and ignorant that they would fall for this misinformation. As the REPUBLICAN sponsors of the hate crimes bill have made clear, the bill would only apply to PHYSICAL VIOLENCE that results in SERIOUS injury or death. This ridiculous argument that the law being considered would close down churches and silence pastors from just preaching antigay sermons (however wrongheaded and hateful the preaching may be), is totally without basis in the text of the bill.