Less Hate Please
After a long and convoluted journey, which has actually seen it passed by the Senate three times, The Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Prevention Act will be offered as an amendment to an upcoming National Defense Bill (don’t ask), in the far more confident hope that it will pass (again) and actually be signed if it does, since the former President had made it clear he would veto it.
Hate crime legislation is a strange beast, with some opponents who I suspect genuinely worry about the idea that it seems to be legislating what people are allowed to think. But a point that is missed is that motivation and intent are always taken into account when crimes are tried. It’s the difference between murder and manslaughter after all.
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy is moving the amendment, and addressed this point in his announcement:
This amendment was carefully crafted to respect constitutional limits and differences of opinion. It will combat acts of violence motivated by hatred and bigotry, but it does not target speech, however offensive or disagreeable, and it certainly does not target religious expression.
Indeed, the Constitution does not permit us in Congress to prohibit the expression of an idea simply because we disagree with it. To paraphrase Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Constitution protects not only freedom for the thought and expression we agree with, but also the freedom for the thought that we abhor. I am devoted to that principle, and I am confident that this amendment does not contradict it.
That additional line “and it certainly does not target religious expression” is also crucial, as one of the claims made against the legislation is that it will criminalise religious leaders who preach hatred disagree with homosexuality for instance. It won’t. It never would, and it’s scandalous that politicians would try to use the suggestion that it does as a means of derailing it. Though ironically that wouldn’t even work as a tactic if it wasn’t for the people who hate those of us who are LGBT.
The senator’s whole statement is covered in The Advocate.