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U.S. hate crime bills/laws
Opposition to U.S. hate-crime bills
by religious and social conservatives
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Proposed federal hate crimes legislation:
As of 2007-APR-17, H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA), was being reviewed by a House committee. 1 This is merely the latest hate crime bill to be introduced to Congress, but it has a chance of being passed. If passed into law, it would update the federal hate crimes act of 1968. In the past, that law has applied only to certain hate crimes motivated by racism, or hatred of a victim's ethnicity, national origin or religion. LLEHCRA would add hatred of the victim's sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability to the list of protected classes.
What the bill says:
If passed into law, this revision to the existing federal hate crimes act would not change the basic nature of the 1968 law. It would only increase the number of protected classes and make the law more generally applicable.
The law would still only apply to a narrow range of violent hate crimes:
- There must be a physical assault of some type -- a common assault, aggravated assault, shooting, etc.
- The perpetrator would have to be found guilty of that assault.
- The prosecutors would then have to prove that the perpetrator was motivated by hatred of men, women, heterosexuals, bisexuals, homosexuals, Christians, Jews, or some other protected class listed in the act. i.e. it would have to be proven that the assault was more than a simple assault; it was an attempt to terrorize an entire community. Further, the prosecutors would have to show that the assault fell into the scope of the federal law. For example, if a person was beaten with a baseball bat, they might prove that the bat was manufactured in another state or purchased from a supplier in another state.
- If these two items can be proven, the perpetrator's sentence would be extended.
The rationale is that a hate crime is a special type of criminal activity. In essence, the bill views two crimes as having been perpetrated: an assault on the victim, and an act of terrorism on the group of whom the victim is one member. The law states that a perpetrator should receive the normal sentence for assaulting another person. But because the motivation of the crime was also to terrorize an entire group of people, the criminal should receive an additional sentence.
Conservative strategy against the bill:
Conservative attacks on the Some social and religious conservatives are opposed to the bill for a variety of reasons:
 | Christians will be charged with conspiracy to commit a hate crime:
They suggest a hypothetical situation in which a pastor or other Christian
might so inflame a congregation with hatred against gays and lesbians that
some unstable church member might immediately go out and attack or kill a
homosexual. The suggestion is that the individual who engaged in hate
propaganda might be charged with conspiracy, along with the actual
perpetrator. This, in turn, would have a chilling effect on freedom of
speech among those wishing to give an anti-gay sermon or speech. The
weakness in this argument is that a hate-crimes bill has been in place to
protect people on the basis of their religion, race, color, and national
origin since the 1960s. There have been tens of thousands of recorded hate
crimes motivated by hatred of these categories. Yet, to our knowledge,
conservative groups have yet to mention a case where a Christian pastor or
member has been charged with conspiracy to commit a hate crime. This would
seem to indicate that the chances of conspiracy being charged in the future
is zero essentially zero. To further reduce the possibility of being charged with incitement to commit a criminal act, Artur Davis (D-AL), a co-sponsor of the bill, offered a change that clarified that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech would not be affected by the bill. That is, pastors and other Christians who denigrate homosexuals (or women or the disabled, etc) need not fear being charged with conspiracy if a someone is motivated by the speech to commit a violent act. The amendment reads:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| They oppose giving gays, lesbians, and bisexuals "special privileges" to
homosexuals. They often refer to the bill as giving special protection to gays
and lesbians. They ignore the fact that the proposed law would protect persons of
all sexual orientations equally: i.e. heterosexuals, bisexuals and
homosexuals. Of course, a hate crime law that includes sexual orientation as a protected class would normally be applied to assault cases on homosexuals. That is because a homosexual is almost 1000 times more likely to be a victim of homophobic violence than a heterosexual is likely to be a victim of heterophobic violence. According to the most recent FBI statistics, the following hate crime statistics were collected for 2005: 2,3
The root cause of conservative opposition including sexual orientation as a
protected
appears to be that such protection would provide a major step towards the
cultural acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality as normal and natural
sexual orientations for a minority of adults. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. To a casual reader of conservative bulletins and newsletters, the main result of this bill would be to offer "special rights" to homosexuals. From various forums that we have monitored, they seem to have succeeded in convincing religious and social conservatives that this bill is exclusively or almost exclusively pro-homosexual. They essentially ignore the fact that the proposed law would also protect men and women on the basis of gender hatred, and would also protect disabled persons. We subscribe to many newsletters from religiously conservative agencies. Before the vote in the House, only one mentioned that the bill would also protect men and women on the basis of their gender, as well as disabled people, heterosexuals, bisexuals, etc. The total emphasis seems to be on homosexuals and occasionally on transsexuals. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The belief that the law could limit hate speech. Some
Conservative groups suggest that pastors could not read any of the six anti-gay
"clobber passages" from the Bible without risking criminal charges. They
ignore the fact that the law only applies when there is first a
serious physical assault or attempted murder. The text of the bill
restricts its application to cases where a perpetrator "willfully causes
bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an
explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any
person ..." 1 Also, it is necessary to prove that the perpetrator
was motivated by hate towards an entire group of people,
and that the crime falls within federal jurisdiction.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the States in 1791. It states:
This guarantees the right of U.S. clergy and laity to express hatred -- and even advocate genocide -- against any person or group of people with impunity. It is this Amendment that has protected:
To our knowledge, none of these have been prosecuted for hate speech. 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The belief that the bill is not needed. Rev. Lou Sheldon,of the fundamentalist Christian Traditional Values Coalition wrote: |
"States already have the resources to deal with crimes of bodily harm or assault, etc. There are no cases of bodily injury that the states have not been able to investigate and prosecute." 5
They overlook the main rationale behind the bill: that hate crimes are very different from other assaults and attempted murders. They are generally perpetrated by strangers with the intent of terrorizing not one victim but an entire group: e.g. all women or a sexual, racial, or other minority.
Religious and social conservatives often point to the FBI statistics shown above. They indicate that there fewer than 1,000 instances of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation per year in an adult population of over 200 million. The overlook the fact that gay bashing is a vastly under-reported crime. Surveys of gay and lesbian adults have shown that about 5 million (~40%) have been the victims of gay bashing.
| Hate speech legislation: Canadian and Swedish laws restricting
the expression of hatred are often mentioned as the result of hate crime
legislation.
They ignore the fact that
Swedish and Canadian Christians who have been charged with homophobic hatred
and bigotry crimes were not charged under hate-crime legislation.
They ran afoul of hate-speech laws.
Neither example applies to the U.S. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects hate speech. |
In addition, most religious and social conservatives seem to promote the idea that hate-crimes legislation is entirely new. They ignore the fact that such legislation is decades-old, and that the present bill would merely add additional protected classes to those already existing.
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- "H.R. 1582," text, at: http://thomas.loc.gov/
- "Hate Crime Statistice 2005," FBI, 2006-OCT, at: http://www.fbi.gov/
- Calculations are:
 | Based on the FBI hate crime report for 2005, and a adult population of 217.8 million. |
| It is based on the assumption that 92% of U.S. adults are heterosexual, 5% are homosexual and 3% are bisexual. Some religious and social conservatives believe that the percentage of homosexuals is much lower; many do not fully recognize the existence of bisexuals. Some gay-positive groups believe that the percentage is much higher. |
| We assume that all victims were adults -- 18 years or older. |
Related essays on this web site:
| U.S. hate-crimes statistics |
| Specific quotations by religious and social conservatives on HR 1592. |
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Copyright © 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
First posted: 2007-APR-18
Latest update: 2007-MAY-04
Author: B.A. Robinson
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