Hate crime laws a limit to freedom?

    In the wake of the racial feuding in Jena, La., Georgia’s Government of Bureau Investigations Chief has recommended to the Georgia legislature to pass a law against hate crimes. This sounds great. We all hate hate. So a law against hate crimes sounds like a wonderful thing. And what’s more, is that Georgia is currently one of only five states in the Union without hate crime laws on the books. Obviously we need to get with the program so we can dispose of the hate in our state.
    Hate crimes are defined as crimes committed against individuals because they are a part of a social group usually defined by race, religion, sexual orientation , disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation. In short, you will be charged with a hate crime if you intentionally cause harm to someone who is different than you.
    It sounds like a good idea to crack down on hate. But there are a few problems that present themselves. The juries will now have to try to read the defendant’s mind to know if their crime was inspired by hate. This law could also cause anger between the different social groups. When crimes are committed against certain people they carry harsher punishments than crimes committed against others. For instance, a crime committed against a disabled person could be listed as a hate crime while a crime committed against a non-disabled person would likely not be listed as a hate crime. This could lead non-disabled individuals to feel that the law believes they are less valuable because crimes committed against them carry lesser punishments.
    What is really scary about this law is that it has the ability to easily limit freedom of speech. Philadelphia had a tax-payer funded Gay Pride parade on their streets in 2004. Eleven people led a counter-demonstration where they called homosexuality a sin. While that was probably very impolite of them, it didn’t seem as though they had broken a law. They never directly talked to the participants in the Gay Pride parade and they didn’t do anything to physically harm the proud participants. It came as a complete surprise to the religious protesters when they were handcuffed and taken off to prison for a hate crime. In the end they were charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors. If they were found guilty on all charges then they would face 47 years in prison and $90,000 in fines each.
    Because of Pennsylvania’s ridiculous hate crime laws, those 11 peaceful protesters were threatened by imprisonment until the year 2054. The District Attorney prosecuting the case even argued that these 11 protesters engaged in “ethnic intimidation” under the claim that homosexuality composes a person’s ethnicity. One of the co-defendants, a seventy-five- year- old grandmother  named Arlene Elshinnawy said, “In my case, pretty ironic that I would be charged with ‘ethnic intimidation’.” Elshinnawy, an African-American, couldn’t believe that a peaceful protest advocating her religion could be misconstrued as ethnically intimidating.
    In the end, a judge ruled that the hate crimes law was applied wrongly in this case and let the defendants off scott free. But it doesn’t change the fact that 11 American citizens were nearly imprisoned for almost five decades just for voicing their religious views. This leads me to wonder where the line gets drawn. If a church held a parade supporting the integration of church and state, and an atheist group peacefully protested, would the atheists be thrown in prison for 47 years? Possibly, but I sure hope not. I don’t mean to sound like a Constitutionalist like Ron Paul, but if the first amendment says you have the right to peacefully assemble, then I think you actually should have the right to peacefully assemble.
    Let’s face it folks, we are Americans. And as Americans, I think we should be able to think any darn thing we want. If anyone reading this wants the government to control what they can and can’t think then they need to move to the USSR. Wait, the USSR no longer exists because the Russians got fed up with their government dictating their thoughts and actions. Hate Crime laws are the first step towards complete government ownership of your mind. Arlene Elshinnawy proved the absurdity of hate crimes when she said, “Truth is hate to those who hate the truth.”
    Every now and then the friendly traveling evangelist, Brother Micah, will grace our campus and declare that we’re all going to hell. He voices his opinion in the college’s free speech zone and he’s certainly entitled to that. At one of his visits last year, the Gay Straight Alliance members passed out literature about their organization to peacefully protest Brother Micah. And I think that’s wonderful. Everybody should have the freedom to peacefully voice contrary opinions. But I can’t help but wonder if a hate crimes law passes and a student organization protests Micah would they be put in handcuffs like those eleven peaceful protesters in Philadelphia? I don’t know, and frankly I don’t think we can afford to risk it with this law.
    The whole point of hate crimes laws are to protect who the government considers minorities. But the true failure of this law is that it encompasses every person as part of a group and not as an individual. Philosopher Ayn Rand was far ahead of her time when she proclaimed, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”

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Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 28 2007. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry