Thursday, August 7, 2008

Hate Crimes Legislation Video

Worth watching, keeping in mind, sharing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBv9UTDfOfk

1 comment:

  1. Anything from the Family Research Council has to be taken with a grain of salt. This is the group that put in their shameless propaganda (voter guides) that my U.S. Congressman "supported state-funded pornography" because he voted to fund the National Endowment for the Arts. The FRC has a loose relationship with the facts, as did D. James Kennedy.

    That having been said, they have a reasonable argument that hate crime laws require us to read the mind of the perpetrator. I agree that hate crimes legislation goes beyond criminalizing actions and makes certain thoughts a crime.

    It's a shame the FRC over-stretches that argument by jumping to the usual Evangelical paranoia that there is a global conspiracy to make it illegal for them to hate gays, atheists, scientists, etc.

    The single incident of the "ex-gay" who allegedly was charged with a hate crime (not backed up by a search of the online Wisconsin case files from 1996)is not convincing. Even if the story were true, it is an example of the law being misapplied. I believe in absolute separation of church and state, but I would support David Ott's right to "witness" to anyone as long as it doesn't rise to the level of harrassment.

    ReplyDelete