thought crimes?

[Irvine511]

so there's this hate crimes bill in front of Congress. we've been through hate crimes before, and i personally have some mixed feelings about their usefulness and maintain that what is truly discriminatory is the effort put into making some groups worthy of protection and others not.

however, this article is slanted in just the right way that it teases out the issue that i think is also an undercurrent of the same sex marriage debate. namely, if homophobia becomes the cultural equivalent of racism, that is, it is illegal and culturally unacceptable, to discriminate (even in thought alone) against gay people, is this tantamount to religious discrimination?

Social Conservatives Blast Hate-Crime Bill, Saying It Will Limit Free Speech
Social conservatives say their right to free speech will be jeopardized if hate crimes legislation now headed to the Senate becomes law.

By James Osborne

FOXNews.com

Thursday, April 30, 2009

A Senate hate crimes bill that would extend federal protection to gay and transgender victims is rousing the ire of social conservatives who say their right to free speech will be jeopardized if it becomes law.

"In and of itself this law can be applied to speech. The nature of assault -- putting someone in fear of their safety -- what will that mean for someone preaching against homosexuality?" said Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Council, a law firm that works on religious freedom cases.

"It elevates homosexuality to the same protective category as race. It's all part of the radical homosexual anarchist agenda," Staver said.

For much of the last decade gay rights activists have been fighting for inclusion within the federal hate crimes law, which places greater penalties on crimes that are committed based on race, ethnicity and religion. Social conservatives, including former President George W. Bush, have fought the legislation on the grounds it could be used to prosecute religious groups who say homosexuality is morally wrong.

But with Democrats now controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, gay rights activists are confident the law will pass and President Obama will sign it. The bill passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday, 249-175.

"This is one of the most supportive environments we've had," said Thomas Howard, Jr., programs director for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an advocacy group named for the gay University of Wyoming student whose 1998 murder became a rallying point for homosexuals.

"The issue is when someone is targeted as a direct result of who they are. This isn't about telling people what they can and can not say."

Frederick Lawrence, a law professor at George Washington University, said there is nothing within the language of the hate crimes bill that would allow for the prosecution of individuals who simply speak out against a particular sexual or ethnic group.

"The only language that would be criminalized is language that would be meet the requirements of conspiracy or solicitation or direct incitement," he said. "Sharing opinions on things, even opinions others consider discriminatory, can not be criminalized."

But that is doing little to calm conservative bloggers, who are outraged by the possibility that a suspect acquitted of a crime in state court can be retried in federal court if the case becomes categorized as a hate crime.

"That is true and it's not unique to the hate crimes arena," said Lawrence. "There is an exception to double jeopardy called the dual sovereignty doctrine. But the Department of Justice has a very strict set of regulations when they can retry someone."

During the debate on the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., angered gay rights activists by claiming Shepard was murdered in a robbery, and not because he was gay.

"(The) hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills," Foxx said.

The congresswoman later apologized, calling the word hoax "a poor choice of words," according to The Associated Press.

In 2004 the ABC television news program 20/20 ran a story in which Shepard's murderers said they killed the 21-year-old for drugs and money in a robbery gone wrong, and not because he was gay -- contradicting the testimony of some witnesses at his murder trial.

The piece went on to portray Shepard as a troubled individual and included an interview with a Wyoming police detective who said he believed the murder was not based on Shepard's sexual orientation.

"It's something we hear quite a bit," Howard said. "I'd like to ask (Foxx) if she has read the trial transcript. Certain individuals completely changed their stories."

so would it be keeping with our freedoms of religion to allow someone to fire someone because they are gay? to deny someone housing?

we're not talking about violence. we're talking about the right of someone to say, "i don't like you and i think you're disgusting and immoral and i don't want you near my children and i am going to do whatever i can to remind you of this." is that a right we have? we would obviously have a big problem if what was said about gays by some religiously conservative folks was said about blacks or Jews, but are these people protected (so to speak) because they're simply living out their faith? do people have a right to speak out against same-sex "behavior"?



here's an editorial on the subject:

EDITORIAL: Thought crimes

Democrats are making it illegal to think certain things. The House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday that extends federal so-called hate-crimes laws to include sexual orientation. This is a move to provide special status for specific groups. It is also unnecessary. If a miscreant kills or rapes somebody, he should be prosecuted for murder or rape. What he might have been thinking is beside the point.

Hate-crimes legislation obscures the fact that the underlying crime is already prosecutable under existing laws. The bill is named after Matthew Shepard, a homosexual who was beaten to death near Laramie, Wyo., in 1998. The case caught national attention, which accelerated the push to establish new hate crimes - but it serves as a fitting example for why new legislation is unnecessary. Mr. Shepard's attackers were successfully prosecuted without homosexuals being established as a special protected class by the federal government.

Current federal hate-crimes law already covers the use or threat of force based on race, color, religion or national origin. Proponents of adding "gender identity" falsely argue that it is needed because these crimes have become more prevalent in recent years. According to FBI data, reported attacks have remained constant - between 7,000 and 9,000 a year nationwide - since 1992.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, Ohio Republican, told an editorial board meeting at The Washington Times that the hate-crimes bill makes him "want to throw up," and noted that it doesn't make sense to prosecute "what we think [criminals] were thinking as opposed to what they did."

Mr. Boehner's point is right on the mark. But the motivation isn't about punishing crime as much as it is about controlling certain thoughts and views. Once homosexuals become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Yesterday's House vote was really about creating thought crimes to further the liberal agenda.

 

[deep]

it was once tolerable to discriminate against Jews on religious grounds,

when laws passed prohibiting denial of service, accommodations, employment based on religious affiliation, that infringed on people's right to follow their religious convictions in relationship to the afore mentioned.

 

[yolland]

^ My father (and a lot of other Jewish academics) wound up teaching at black colleges in the Jim Crow South originally because of the 'quota systems' designed to keep Jews out of the professions. Black and Jewish philanthropists who funded the black colleges recognized in that situation an opportunity to benefit both groups: black colleges needed more professors, and black professors were in direly short supply due to extremely poor educational opportunities for African-Americans; Jewish academics needed jobs, and unlike other 'whites' (including Northerners--even in the North, 'white' teachers at mostly-black elementary and high schools were almost always Jews), Jews seldom had objections to teaching black students...the biggest obstacle in persuading them to do it was usually their reservations about living among white Southerners. It would be inaccurate though to describe that sort of anti-Semitism merely as based on 'religious affiliation'; it certainly also had to do with racialized conceptions of Jews.




Aaaanyway, back to the topic...I would want to know what specifically these people protesting the hate crimes bill on 'religious freedom' grounds envision its passage bringing about. Hate crimes laws certainly don't prevent ideological racists, anti-Semites etc. from exercising their 'free speech.' Religion has been a protected category under hate crimes legislation for many years now, and I don't recall hearing them raise much fuss about that--which makes their sudden discovery of objection-on-principle to penalty enhancements based on malice towards a protected category of persons seem rather hypocritical, doesn't it?

 

[AlexHamilton]

Irvine, if this is a serious question, you should read up on some of the Court's decisions. Check out oyez.org

 

[Irvine511]

Religion has been a protected category under hate crimes legislation for many years now, and I don't recall hearing them raise much fuss about that--which makes their sudden discovery of objection-on-principle to penalty enhancements based on malice towards a protected category of persons seem rather hypocritical, doesn't it?

it does.

i'm wondering why Matthew Shepard is brought back up.

if he had been a black man dragged from a car by a chain wrapped around his neck, do you think the Republicans would be putting up such a fuss?

 

[deep]

.

 

[yolland]

i'm wondering why Matthew Shepard is brought back up.

I assume because the unofficial name of the bill is the Matthew Shepard Act...is that what you're asking?

The 'thought crimes' argument against hate crimes legislation always irks me, because it completely misconstrues the intent--the argument for penalty enhancement is based on the generally higher likelihood of social-bias-motivated crimes to sour community relations and sow civic unrest, provoke retaliatory crimes, and create distress within the victim's community (i.e. the objects of the perpetrator's bias) in ways that descriptively similar crimes lacking this dimension wouldn't have. It's not based on notions of the perpetrator's actual mindset being 'more offensive' in some legally substantive way compared to that of a perpetrator whose otherwise similar crime wasn't bias-motivated.

It is true that you wouldn't see a bill like this being proposed, never mind passing, outside a social climate where holding prejudicial views towards gay people is indeed increasingly seen as "culturally unacceptable." In an environment where homosexuality is vilified, gay people are deep in the closet, and both gay and straight people have internalized a view that gays are 'deviant' and 'perverted' and 'disgusting,' a gay man who gets beaten up by a couple guys calling him f----- is most likely not going to report the crime at all, let alone turn to the nonexistent 'local gay community' for emotional and legal support. But that couldn't accurately be attributed to his assailants' 'freedom of religion.' Is it likely that in another 20 years, expressing in most public settings the view that homosexuality is disgusting and/or immoral will incur considerable social stigma--well, yes, much like openly expressing the view that 'I'm not voting for no n-----' does now. The First Amendment doesn't protect you from that, though.

 

[Irvine511]

I assume because the unofficial name of the bill is the Matthew Shepard Act...is that what you're asking?

i'm more wondering why it seems to be important for some representatives to want to divorced Shepard's sexual orientation from his slaying, whereas no one would do that to an african-american dragged behind a car.


YouTube - Rep. Virginia Foxx Dishonored Matthew Shepard's Death On The House Floor



and i'm also wondering why the "freedom of religion" card is being played -- the Republicans don't seem to see much of a difference between verbally bashing queers and actually bashing queers. they seem to think that if you get in extra-special trouble for bashing a queer that the next thing you know, it will be illegal to verbally bash them.

 

[BVS]

Virgina Foxx what a hateful woman...

Matthew's mother was in the room that day as well.

 

[Jive Turkey]

"Once homosexuals become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against homosexuality and same-sex marriage."

how is this any different than saying "Once blacks become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against their civil rights and interracial marriage." ? Are these people so blinded by their bigotry that they dont even stop to think about what it really is they're saying? They're pretty much worried that new legislation will stop them from being able to spew hateful words about a specific group of the population? Ridiculous.

 

[deep]

how is this any different than saying "Once blacks become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against interracial marriage."

Look what happened to Bob Jones University,
they had their rights to practice their religious beliefs pounced on by the Federal Government.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Look what happened to Bob Jones University,
they had their rights to practice their religious beliefs pounced on by the Federal Government.

Do you support their racism? People seem to think that by throwing in the word 'religion', their bigotry suddenly becomes socially acceptable. Religion is a choice. Being black, gay, female, etc is not.

 

[deep]

Jay Scott Bybee (born October 27, 1953 in Oakland, California) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In an amicus brief, Bybee supported the tax exempt status of Bob Jones University, despite its discriminatory policy barring interracial dating.

On March 13, 2003; the Senate confirmed Bybee's nomination by a vote of 74-19.

Appartenly 74 Senators, many Democrats don't have a problem confirming a Federal Judge that believes in religious freedom.

 

[Jive Turkey]

please excuse my use of Wikipedia.....

"In 2000, following a media uproar prompted by the visit of presidential candidate George W. Bush to the University, Bob Jones III abruptly dropped the interracial dating rule, announcing the change on CNN's Larry King Live. Five years later when asked for his view of the rule change, the current president, Stephen Jones, replied, 'I've never been more proud of my dad than the night he...lifted that policy.'"

"In November 2008, the University declared itself 'profoundly sorry' for having allowed 'institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful.'"

Even the University is calling out its old practices for what they were: Thinly veiled racism

 

[deep]

wiki

Appartenly 74 Senators, many Democrats don't have a problem confirming a Federal Judge that believes in religious freedom.

In High-Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (F.2d, 1990) Bybee defended a mandatory screening process for all "known or suspected [to be]" gay employees arguing that their participation in "acts of sexual misconduct or perversion [are] indicative of moral turpitude, poor judgment, or lack of regard for the laws of society."

He has also argued in a law review article that "homosexuals" are "emotionally unstable" and that banning discrimination based on sexual orientation creates "preferences" favoring "homosexuals," instead of protecting them.

 

[maycocksean]

please excuse my use of Wikipedia.....

"In 2000, following a media uproar prompted by the visit of presidential candidate George W. Bush to the University, Bob Jones III abruptly dropped the interracial dating rule, announcing the change on CNN's Larry King Live. Five years later when asked for his view of the rule change, the current president, Stephen Jones, replied, 'I've never been more proud of my dad than the night he...lifted that policy.'"

"In November 2008, the University declared itself 'profoundly sorry' for having allowed 'institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful.'"

Even the University is calling out its old practices for what they were: Thinly veiled racism

when I was in high school my school had a no-interracial dating policy also. I actually knew of two students who got supsended for it.

I don't buy the fear about hate crimes. You're still allowed to think and even speak racist ideas without running afoul of the law despite hate crimes legislation based on race.

 

[yolland]

^ For real? In central Florida in the late 80s? Wow. Even in Mississippi, I don't remember ever hearing about anything like that at the time, maybe it was just the area we lived in. Unofficial interracial dating polices, yes (typically enforced by the relevant girl's older brother's fist; one of my brothers had the crap beaten out of him once), but not official ones. The papers would've been all over that.

 

[maycocksean]

^ For real? In central Florida in the late 80s?

Sad but true. It shames me to say this, but I think the fact that it was a private academy affiliated with our church made it easier for this policy to stay on the books for a longer period of time then it might have otherwise. Similar to BJU in that regard.

It was widely known that our vice principal had cat named ****** as well.

My 8th grade teacher made a big speech in class about how he didn't like niggers (albiet explaining that not all black people were such).

Unfortunately, I have lots of similar stories from my days growing up in Florida.

 

[BonosSaint]

What was the reaction to the other students to that? Was it accepted as "normal"--just common sense?

God, that must have been a bitch.

 

[A stor]

Sad but true. It shames me to say this, but I think the fact that it was a private academy affiliated with our church made it easier for this policy to stay on the books for a longer period of time then it might have otherwise. Similar to BJU in that regard.

It was widely known that our vice principal had cat named ****** as well.

My 8th grade teacher made a big speech in class about how he didn't like niggers (albiet explaining that not all black people were such).

Unfortunately, I have lots of similar stories from my days growing up in Florida.

I went to high school in the early seventies and even then, there wasn't any rules in regards to dating. We could be suspended for fighting, smoking or cutting class.

The murder of Mathew is absolutely horrible. My heart goes out to his family.

I am a spiritual person and so are my friends. And none of us are homophobic, anti Jew, Black, etc. In fact a good friend of mine has a brother in law who is gay, with a lifetime partner.
He is a wonderful uncle to her son. Being gay does not equal child molester. That is a different matter, all together.

 

[anitram]

Sad but true. It shames me to say this, but I think the fact that it was a private academy affiliated with our church made it easier for this policy to stay on the books for a longer period of time then it might have otherwise. Similar to BJU in that regard.

I honestly don't mean to be confrontational at all and I know you well enough that you won't take it that way, but what would compel you (or your family I suppose) to stay members of such a church? I mean, I cannot imagine doing so, and I don't even go to church myself anymore because I'm tired of priests yammering on about gays from the pulpit. But what you experienced is even more extreme and personal.

 

[Irvine511]

Sad but true. It shames me to say this, but I think the fact that it was a private academy affiliated with our church made it easier for this policy to stay on the books for a longer period of time then it might have otherwise. Similar to BJU in that regard.

It was widely known that our vice principal had cat named ****** as well.

My 8th grade teacher made a big speech in class about how he didn't like niggers (albiet explaining that not all black people were such).

Unfortunately, I have lots of similar stories from my days growing up in Florida.

wow. just, wow.

am sorry you had to deal with all that. it kind of blows my mind.

 

[melon]

I honestly don't mean to be confrontational at all and I know you well enough that you won't take it that way, but what would compel you (or your family I suppose) to stay members of such a church? I mean, I cannot imagine doing so, and I don't even go to church myself anymore because I'm tired of priests yammering on about gays from the pulpit. But what you experienced is even more extreme and personal.

Not that I can speak for him or even necessarily compare, but it reminds me of what I read about Clarence Thomas' earlier years:

Raised Roman Catholic (he later attended an Episcopal church with his wife, but returned to the Catholic Church in the late 1990s), Thomas considered entering the priesthood at the age of 16, becoming the first black student to attend St. John Vianney's Minor Seminary (Savannah) on the Isle of Hope. He also attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary in Missouri, briefly. No one in Thomas's family had attended college, and Thomas has said that during his first year in seminary he was one of only "three or four" blacks attending the school. Thomas told interviewers that he left the seminary after overhearing a student say, in response to the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Good, I hope the son of a bitch died." He did not think the church did enough to combat racism.

At a nun's suggestion, Thomas attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where as a sophomore transfer student he had to adjust to a New England atmosphere very different from what he was used to in Savannah. At Holy Cross, Thomas helped found the Black Student Union and once walked out after an incident in which black students were punished while white students were not for committing the same violation. Some of the priests negotiated with the protesting black students to return to school, and Thomas graduated in 1971 with an A.B. cum laude in English literature.

 

[deep]

I have been reading these boards long enough to know about some of the things Sean has experienced. None of it surprises me. Knowing what part of the country he was raised in and in what time period.

I really don't think Sean needs to explain why he is a person of faith any more than any of use need to explain why we believe in the U S Justice System after the Alberto Gonzales and the Bush Administration abused and corrupted it.


Or why any of us support the Police and Law Enforcement when we read about bad cops and corruption.

What good would it have done if a young Sean walked away from a religious community, that gave him some comfort, only to walk into world where racism existed without comfort?

I should let Sean speak for himself.
I just don't feel it is our place to make what sounds like judgments, when most of use have not had the same situations and options presented to us.





and Clarence Thomas is a whole different story, I believe he is a bitter angry man.
Sean is not.

 

[VintagePunk]

I just don't feel it is our place to make what sounds like judgments, when most of use have not had the same situations and options presented to us.

I don't think Anitram was necessarily making a judgment about Sean, or at least not a negative one. I was wondering the same thing myself. It bothered me when I read Sean's comments, thinking that he lived with that as part of his daily experience. I guess being white and never having experienced any sort of racism, or never seeing any overt expression of racism around me, it seems to me that Sean and his family must have had some sort of inner strength or ability to turn the other cheek that I just don't possess. Anyway, I look forward to reading his response.

 

[deep]

I guess being white and never having experienced any sort of racism.

Me, I have only live in Los Angeles and Orange County California all my live.

And being white, male, and straight have I experienced any racism?

You bet, everyday.




edit to add:

I certainly was not addressing my post at anitram, she is wise way beyond her young years.

I was more directing this at all of us.

 

[VintagePunk]

Me, I have only live in Los Angeles and Orange County California all my live.

And being white, male, and straight have I experienced any racism?

You bet, everyday.

Well, Anitram and I are Canadian, and while it would be foolish to think that it's a completely racism-free nirvana here, I'm sure our experiences are quite different from many Americans, hence our curiosity.

 

[yolland]

I remember that the way you often used to hear Southern evangelicals phrasing their opinion of BJU and its notorious dating policy was "They're too conservative" or perhaps "That's not correct Christian thinking." As opposed to "They're racists" or "They're not true Christians," which is probably what evangelicals in other parts of the country would have said. It's a Southern thing I think, and reflects the fact that racial segregation was the firmly enshrined "traditional culture" in the South within living memory of many, in a palpable and pervasive way that wasn't the case elsewhere, despite a considerable amount of de facto segregation being normative pretty much nationwide into the 1960s. And church communities in general are a major locus of transmission for what's traditional and time-honored, for good and for bad, so that social customs which are greatly eroded or altered elsewhere often persist in them longer--even when that's unsupported by the formal doctrine of the church or denomination in question. I would describe BJU's former policy as racist, but as a Southerner-by-upbringing I do also view it primarily as a consequence of beholdenness to a (bad) traditional worldview native to the region, rather than primarily as a consequence of an f-ed up theology (a la Fred Phelps). So I can understand where people were coming from whose comment might've been "They're too conservative," and why they chose to take an optimistic view of the possibility for change...after all, the surrounding culture has and continues to change, so there's reason to hope the various stagnated holdouts you might feel personal ties to for whichever reason may yet, too.

A bit more cynically (not to put words in Sean's mouth here, though), I also think that when you fall into the 'receiving end' category of these kinds of tradition-bound prejudices, and you're experiencing that at a point in time where the initial heave into a more egalitarian way of thinking is still a work in progress, you sometimes accept certain things as 'normal, expected social reality' in a way you never would later. There's a kind of psychological emancipation from a beaten-down, or self-loathing, or timid-outlier mentality (depending on which group you fall into) to a mindset of expectation that you should be treated equally, and accept nothing less without a fight. I experienced this myself growing up, and in various other ways so did many of my friends.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Me, I have only live in Los Angeles and Orange County California all my live.

And being white, male, and straight have I experienced any racism?

You bet, everyday.

Thats a very superficial racism though. Sure its annoying at the time, but we at least have to comfort to know that as straight white males, racism will never affect us in a profound way as it relates to our jobs or our place in society.

 

[mysterious_jen]

Well, Anitram and I are Canadian, and while it would be foolish to think that it's a completely racism-free nirvana here, I'm sure our experiences are quite different from many Americans, hence our curiosity.

sorry to butt in but i have the same curious and outraged perspective as an Australian. i cannot believe the religous hatred and bigotry that occurs in America , and the outrageous connection between church and government.


feel very lucky not to have to put up with any of it .