http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6428
By http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6058
A http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6418 group—secular liberals!
Today, two hate crime bills are before our government: the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act (http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6701 Hate Crime Prevention Act (HR 262). The first bill expands the original 1968 hate law and also commands the Federal Sentencing Commission to study “adult recruitment of juveniles to commit hate crimes.” The Sentencing Commission will thus enhance punishment for people who incite hate crimes. This vague language could be interpreted by activist judges to punish adults whose “hateful speech” against immigrants, homosexuals, or other protected groups allegedly inspires hate crimes.HR 262 also is a sinister blueprint for an American hate crimes bureaucracy. It establishes a federal database and clearinghouse on hate crimes, a national hotline for hate crime or “discrimination” complainers, and a federal hate crimes website. It demands special privileges—including tax-supported unemployment compensation, relocation and housing, and counseling—for hate crime victims. It sets aside money for “education” against hate in American schools from elementary to university, poisoning minds against politically incorrect opinions from the cradle and preparing America’s future leaders to accept speech laws against them. Cost to the taxpayer: 20 million dollars annually.
Where these hate laws are not an abusive expansion of federal power they are redundant of existing law’s protection of crime victims. They set the precedent for criminalizing certain beliefs (biases)—a precedent that will inevitably harden into a pure speech code, leaving our First Amendment broken in the basement of history.
Christians are rightly worried about our rights under hate laws to express religious beliefs that might be seen as “hateful.” But what about the free speech of non-Christian Americans? What about the free speech of liberals?
Many liberals wish to criticize religion, especially Christianity and Islam. This freedom is endangered by speech laws. In 2002, a French writer, known for despising the three monotheistic religions, was hauled before judges for calling Islam “the stupidest religion.” French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has been http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4860. Under hate speech laws, what might happen to the atheists who rake religion over the coals, or ex-Christians who write with biting disgust about the Bible? Browse any bookstore—especially in a liberal city like mine—and you can find plenty of vitriolic speech against believers.
Many liberals are also ardent critics of Israel and the Zionist movement. This, too, could land them in hot water for hate speech. In 2007, Richard Dawkins was accused of anti-Semitism for saying the American Jewish lobby is “monopolizing American foreign policy.” Students and teachers at colleges across the nation have gotten their hands dirty in the Israel-Palestine debate, which would be severely restricted by broader bans on “hate speech” against Jews. What if one of them was indicted for expressing their righteous anger—like the senior British diplomat who was arrested for what he yelled at the gym TV while watching coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza?
http://truthtellers.org/alerts/hatelawshurtliberals.html