Return of 'hate crimes' plan looms in Congress

by Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily: A federal "hate crimes" plan to criminalize speech or thoughts critical of homosexuality -- dropped from Congress' agenda earlier because of a veto threat from President Bush -- may be resurrected before the election, according to an opponent of such advocacy laws. "Here's ultimately what we expect," Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law, [said] "The hate crimes plan is to be offered as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2009 Department of Defense reauthorization bill. That's what the word is, that it's going to be offered as an amendment."

Pro-homosexual advocates long have sought such a law but opponents fear it would be used to crack down on those who maintain a biblical perspective that condemns homosexuality as sin. Observers note that it would criminalize speech and thought, since other criminal actions already are addressed with current statutes. Canada already has an aggressive "hate crimes" law, and there authorities there have gone so far as to tell a Christian pastor he must recant his faith because of the legislation that bans statements that can be "perceived" as condemning another person.

Some states already have similar statutes, too, and in New Mexico, a photography company run by two Christians was fined $6,600 by the state for declining to provide services to a lesbian couple setting up a lookalike "marriage" ceremony. Also, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter recently signed a bill into law that opponents describe as draconian, with one analyst expressing the opinion that it actually could be read as outlawing publication of the Bible in the state because of its injunctions against homosexuality . . . [Full Story]

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