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Christian Right Claims Hate Crime Law Will Ban Free Speechby Kilian MelloyThursday Oct 29, 2009 President Barack Obama’s historic signing of the firs federal law offering protections to GLB T people has been met with cries of warning from the Christian right that before long the government will use the law to suppress religious freedom of expression.
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act provides penalties for violent crimes that target individuals based on the victim’s sex, sexuality, or gender identity. Though the measure includes guarantees designed to protect First Amendment freedoms, opponents have blasted the Act for creating a new class of "thought crimes," and worried that the law would be used to suppress religious expression, including readings of anti-gay Biblical passages.
Religious and conservative pundits lost no time following President Obama’s Oct. 28 signing of the bill into law. Ant-gay religious site OneNewsNow posted an article that same day warning that Christian broadcasting companies feared the law could be used to squelch anti-gay content. The article quoted Craig Parshall, a lawyer for Natikonal Religious Broadcasters (NRB) as saying that the broadcasting of anti-gay rhetoric that inspires in individual to attack an LGBT person might lead to charges against the broadcaster.
Parshall based his projection of what might happen in the United States in European law. "Under the criminal law of incitement, if something is said in a broadcast that another person uses as a motivation to go out and commit an act of what they call ’bodily injury’ in the statute, then a broadcaster could be held criminally liable," even if the "injury" results from inadvertent contact at a rally or march.
Parshall downplayed the protections included in the law, saying that the courts could interpret that language in a way that fails to protect the right of people of faith to excoriate gays. "We have a court system that has been notorious for getting it wrong when it pits the power of government on one hand and the free exercise of religious rights of individuals on the other."
The lawyer made use of frequently-employed arguments that children might be "indoctrinated" by gays, saying, "Public school curriculum could be built entirely on the idea of what is illegal hate in our culture.... And our children could be indoctrinated [to believe that] if you criticize another religion or mention Jesus as being the only way, that’s hateful--[or] if you say that homosexuality is a sin, that’s hateful."
The article went on to say that Parshall regarded the law as designed to silence Christians and squelch dissent toward the gay "lifestyle."
Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Erik Stanley echoed that interpretation in an Oct. 28 article at anti-gay site WorldNetDaily, saying, "Bills of this sort are designed to forward a political agenda and silence critics, not combat actual crime.... The bottom line is that we do not need a law that creates second-class victims in America and that gives the government the opportunity to ignore the First Amendment."
Critics claim that he new law gives "special" rights and protections to gays that are "denied" to others. However, federal hate crimes laws had already been in place that enhanced penalties for violent crimes carried out against racial minorities, and it is standard that additional penalties are handed down when crimes target public officials or police officers. Moreover, the so-called "special" protects the law allegedly gives to gays are a response to the higher rate of violent crime with which GLBTs are targeted. Federal tracking of hate crimes shows that gays are targeted more often than almost any other minority, and that anti-gay attacks have been on the increase in recent years.
Anti-gay activists and leaders focused, however, on the message that hate crimes protections would unfairly target Christians. The WorldNetDaily article quoted the president of the anti-gay American Family Association, Tim Wildmon, as claiming that the Hate Crimes Prevention Act "creates a kind of caste system in law enforcement, where the perverse thing is that people who engage in non-normative sexual behavior will have more legal protection than heterosexuals. This kind of inequality before the law is simply un-American... It threatens free speech and freedom of religion and is totally unacceptable," Wildmon went on, claiming that if a sermon condemns gays and someone hearing that sermon then commits a violent attack against a gay person, the pastor could be held liable.
Conservative blog author Joe Seales noted that YouTube, a private company, had begun to ban what it deemed to be "hate speech" online. Seales’ complaint centered on the sermons of Pastor James David Manning, who Seales wrote was "restricted from posting new material on YouTube for ’hate speech’, simply for stating his religious views."
Wrote Seales, "In some parts of Europe, you can now be arrested for simply stating what the Bible says about homosexuality. Though it hasn’t come to that yet in America, you better believe it is coming soon, friends. With the passage of the new ’hate crimes’ bill, this opens up the door for an all out assault on religion and free speech."
Seales offered his readers an alternative to Youtube and Google, writing, "Conservatives and Independents should know that there are other online outlets for getting their message out to the public. One of my favorite new media sites is NMATV, founded by conservatives Bob Parks and Gary Schneider of Heritage New Media Partners, INC. At NMATV, not only can you upload videos just like on YouTube, but there is also the ability to broadcast a show live via webcam. NMATV is a safehaven not only for Conservatives, but Independents and free thinking Democrats who have yet to drink the Kool-Aid and like to hear alternative points of view."
Seales echoed the concern that Christians were being singled out for persecution, writing, "Will the same standard apply to Muslims or is this directed only towards Christians?"
Seales noted that "liberals" had once been characterized for their willingness to defend free speech for everyone; "Whatever happened to the good liberals who might disagree with you, but would fight to defend your right to say it?" he wrote.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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