Here is another update from the Family Research Council, on hate crimes issues:
Jail House Crock: Girl Imprisoned for 'Hate Crime'If you, like many Americans, are wondering what all the commotion is about over hate crimes legislation, consider this disturbing case in Crystal Lake, Illinois. In a high school prank gone terribly wrong, a 16-year-old girl distributed fliers at school that contained a picture of two male students kissing each other and a headline that read, "God hates [homosexuals]." (An ugly slang term was actually used.) According to reports, she managed to hand out about 40 copies before school officials intervened. Obviously, what the girl did was not only wrong, it was biblically inaccurate. God does not hate homosexuals. This type of behavior is not appropriate and the school officials should have disciplined the student accordingly. However, school officials chose to turn the matter over to local law enforcement. As a result, the teenager was charged with a "hate crime" by county officers and thrown into a juvenile detention center for nearly 20 days. When the 16-year-old appeared in court she was in shackles. The state's attorney said, "This is a classic case of the kind of conduct that the state legislature was directing the [hate crimes] law against. This is what the legislators wanted to stop, this kind of activity." However, the attorney's statements are in direct contradiction with the letter of the law, which says that a person can be charged with a hate crime if they commit "a criminal act with the intent to cause harm." Hate crimes, by definition, are violent acts. This is the progression of "hate crime" laws that has happened in almost every jurisdiction where they have been created. Once in place the laws are either modified or extended to include speech. FRC has just completed a joint project with Coral Ridge Ministries documenting how so-called "hate crime" laws have morphed into "hate speech" laws criminalizing biblically correct speech.
While I strongly disapprove of what this girl did, one could argue she has the right to do it under our Constitution. The fact that she was treated the way she was is a bad sign of what may be to come. Of course it's hard to draw a firm judgment without knowing the details. If, for example, her intent was to foment violence and that was clear, that would be wrong. On the other hand, if it was intended to make a moral statement, we need to protect that. It was called a "prank", which suggests that this was not an evangelical tract or an attempt at moral persuasion, and is not inconsistent with an attempt to foment violence. But you get into troublesome nuances. It is very difficult for the justice system to discern intent. That is why typically laws make specific actions either legal or illegal independent of intent. Speeding is wrong regardless of why you are doing it, though you may persuade an officer to look the other way. So if we say it's illegal to distribute this if your intent is to foment violence, but legal if you are attempting to morally persuade someone, not only are either of these two intentions hard to prove, but it makes the law subject to bias and subjectivity. (Not that it can't be subject to those things otherwise.)
In any case, we need to protect our right to say that "homosexual practices are wrong and homosexual desires are disordered", and we need enough margin to protect us from abuse at the hands of the law.
