If you, like many Americans, are wondering what all the commotion is about over hate crimes legislation, consider this disturbing case in Crystal
Lake, Illinois.
In a high school prank gone terribly wrong, a 16-year-old girl distributed fliers at school that contained a picture of two male
students kissing each other and a headline that read, “God hates [homosexuals].” (An ugly slang term was actually used.)
According to reports, she
managed to hand out about 40 copies before school officials intervened. Obviously, what the girl did was not only wrong, it was biblically
inaccurate.
God does not hate homosexuals. This type of behavior is not appropriate and the school officials should have disciplined the student
accordingly.
However, school officials chose to turn the matter over to local law enforcement. As a result, the teenager was charged with a “hate
crime” by county officers and thrown into a juvenile detention center for nearly 20 days.
When the 16-year-old appeared in court she was in
shackles. The state’s attorney said, “This is a classic case of the kind of conduct that the state legislature was directing the [hate crimes] law
against. This is what the legislators wanted to stop, this kind of activity.”
However, the attorney’s statements are in direct contradiction with
the letter of the law, which says that a person can be charged with a hate crime if they commit “a criminal act with the intent to cause harm.” Hate
crimes, by definition, are violent acts.
This is the progression of “hate crime” laws that has happened in almost every jurisdiction where they have
been created. Once in place the laws are either modified or extended to include speech.
FRC has just completed a joint project with Coral Ridge
Ministries documenting how so-called “hate crime” laws have morphed into “hate speech” laws criminalizing biblically correct speech. I encourage you
to order a copy of “Censoring the Church and Silencing Christians.”
Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council. This article was excerpted from the Washington Update that he compiles for the FRC.
