Equal Protection; Unequal Projection
President Obama is supposed to sign the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Act today. The bill expands protection and prosecution of bias-motivated crimes to more activities and to more people--"actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability." I am proud of my country today. (Even though the bill was slipped into a defense spending bill.)
I said earlier this year that "I'm of the belief that if you're singled out--because of your status as a protected class--as the target/victim of a crime, then yes, the crime is bias-motivated." Yes, there are probably 14th Amendment equal-protection pitfalls to having special "protected classes" but if this is what we've worked with for forty years for "special classes" like race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion, then these new classes deserve to be special classes protected from domestic terrorism, too.
People don't mention the 14th Amendment/equal protection problem, though. They're very focused on 1st Amendment snafus. Yeah, yeah. I know. Never mind that the Shepard Act says it cannot be used to abridge constitutionally protected free speech or religious expression.
Take Dr. Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, for example. Today Dr. Cass issued a press release saying Obama's Hate Crime Laws are 'Hate Christian' Laws.
Ignoring the fact that these incidents happened in Canada, which does not have the same free speech protections, Cass writes that because of the Shepard act:
"Conservative Christians who hold to the historic Christian faith and it's values, that become the object of institutionalized, governmental hate. Christians who dare to tell the truth about the social, moral, spiritual and health consequences of illicit homosexual acts are accused of hate speech and intimidated into silence with threats of fines or jail."
I suppose this would depend on what historic values the conservative Christians hold. Polygamy, slavery, and stoning are all historic values that probably would result in government interference. It is true that many Christians are willing to share the truth about the consequences of being gay--through bashing, discriminating and protesting your basic hate crime protections.
"[Obama] will stop at nothing to undermine the will of the majority of Americans to pay back militant homosexual activists who raised millions of dollars for his campaign and worked to get him elected."
LOL Yeah, he's really paying back those militant homos with his stunningly snail-paced repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and his administration's defense of DOMA.
Cass says Obama has a "radical, anti-Christian" agenda and that by signing this law Obama will be displaying his contempt for "the majority of Americans who oppose the 'homosexualization of marriage and public education.'"
He says that the Christian Anti-Defamation committee and other Christian groups "will defy, counter and challenge this unconstitutional attack on our religious liberty."
(Huh? Wait. So, does that mean you'll--with the pitchforks and--oh. Yeah... That...that didn't come out the right way at all.)
The truth is, when a person is assaulted for being Christian, that person is protected under forty year-old hate crime protections. In 2007,10% of crimes with a religious bias-motivation were attacks on people for being Catholic or Protestant. But to give the LGBT community--and also the disabled and genderqueer community--the same bias-motivated crime protections the Christian community currently enjoys is...hating on Christians?
Really, it's not all about you, all right?
Today is not about you. It is about not only the murder, but the lynching of two men in modern day America, and trying to erase that stain from our national conscience.
I said earlier this year that "I'm of the belief that if you're singled out--because of your status as a protected class--as the target/victim of a crime, then yes, the crime is bias-motivated." Yes, there are probably 14th Amendment equal-protection pitfalls to having special "protected classes" but if this is what we've worked with for forty years for "special classes" like race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion, then these new classes deserve to be special classes protected from domestic terrorism, too.
People don't mention the 14th Amendment/equal protection problem, though. They're very focused on 1st Amendment snafus. Yeah, yeah. I know. Never mind that the Shepard Act says it cannot be used to abridge constitutionally protected free speech or religious expression.
Take Dr. Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, for example. Today Dr. Cass issued a press release saying Obama's Hate Crime Laws are 'Hate Christian' Laws.
Ignoring the fact that these incidents happened in Canada, which does not have the same free speech protections, Cass writes that because of the Shepard act:
"Conservative Christians who hold to the historic Christian faith and it's values, that become the object of institutionalized, governmental hate. Christians who dare to tell the truth about the social, moral, spiritual and health consequences of illicit homosexual acts are accused of hate speech and intimidated into silence with threats of fines or jail."
I suppose this would depend on what historic values the conservative Christians hold. Polygamy, slavery, and stoning are all historic values that probably would result in government interference. It is true that many Christians are willing to share the truth about the consequences of being gay--through bashing, discriminating and protesting your basic hate crime protections.
"[Obama] will stop at nothing to undermine the will of the majority of Americans to pay back militant homosexual activists who raised millions of dollars for his campaign and worked to get him elected."
LOL Yeah, he's really paying back those militant homos with his stunningly snail-paced repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and his administration's defense of DOMA.
Cass says Obama has a "radical, anti-Christian" agenda and that by signing this law Obama will be displaying his contempt for "the majority of Americans who oppose the 'homosexualization of marriage and public education.'"
He says that the Christian Anti-Defamation committee and other Christian groups "will defy, counter and challenge this unconstitutional attack on our religious liberty."
(Huh? Wait. So, does that mean you'll--with the pitchforks and--oh. Yeah... That...that didn't come out the right way at all.)
The truth is, when a person is assaulted for being Christian, that person is protected under forty year-old hate crime protections. In 2007,10% of crimes with a religious bias-motivation were attacks on people for being Catholic or Protestant. But to give the LGBT community--and also the disabled and genderqueer community--the same bias-motivated crime protections the Christian community currently enjoys is...hating on Christians?
Really, it's not all about you, all right?
Today is not about you. It is about not only the murder, but the lynching of two men in modern day America, and trying to erase that stain from our national conscience.