Persecution Politics: Conservatives Challenge New Hate Crime Law

A conservative "civil liberties" group has challenged the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center is suing U.S. government on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan. The suit alleges that the law violates the plaintiffs' freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment, the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment, Federal jurisdiction constraints of the 10th Amendment, and, for good measure, the Constitution's Commerce Clause. That's three Amendments and one Clause, which is an awful lot of unconstitutionality for one bill.

According to Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, "the sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible." It's other sole purpose, he claimed, is to use the threat of prosecution "to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin." It's other other sole purpose is to elevate "persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors," i.e. perverts, "to a special protected class of persons." And it's other other other sole purpose is to "pay off" homosexual advocacy groups for supporting Obama in the last election. That's an awful lot of sole purposes for one bill.

Robert Muise, who is handling the case, explained that the new law "creates 'thought crimes' by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions." This position is shared by the James Dobson who has warned, "If you read the Bible a certain way with regard to morality - you may be guilty of committing a 'thought crime.'" It's also shared by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), whose office has produced talking points declaring that "The Hate Crimes bill creates a new Federal 'Thought Crime.'" Actually, a lot of right wing folks share this view. Just google "homosexual thought crime" for hours of surfing pleasure.

But to jump straight to the heart of the matter, listen to Andrea Laffery, director of the Traditional Values Coalition: "The goal is to undermine the First Amendment and persecute Christians who oppose homosexuality."

If you're not a right wing zealot or a gay fascist, you may be wondering why anyone thinks that the hate crime bill, which is designed to combat violent against homosexuals, persecutes Christians. In his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Richard Hofstadter notes that political paranoiacs tend to project their own qualities and aspirations onto others. Thus, members of the religious right project their own hatred and intolerance of homosexuals onto the homosexuals. This act of projection enables them to feel justified in their hatred and intolerance. As Freud writes in his analysis of paranoia, "He hates (persecutes) me, which will entitle me to hate him."

In fact, the religious right has a long history of trying to reverse the intolerance equation. For instance, Anita Bryant, a former pop singer and beauty queen, famously campaigned against a 1977 Miami ordinance to guarantee equal employment and housing rights for gays by stating, "If this ordinance amendment is allowed to become law, you will in fact be infringing upon my right or rather DISCRIMINATING against me as a citizen and mother to teach my children and set examples or point to others as examples of God's moral code as stated in the Holy Scriptures." [Emphasis hers.]

Tim LaHaye, who created the bestselling Left Behind series, argued that "when all job discrimination for homosexuality is removed...teachers can be expected to brainwash our children with the 'blessings' of the unhappy gay life."

But the award for Best Projection in Homophobic Literature goes to Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, authors of The Pink Swastika, for attempting to prove that the Nazis were not intolerant of homosexuals; they were homosexuals. Scott Lively, incidentally, has just made the news again for speaking at a conference in Uganda about the evils of the "gay agenda." After the conference, the Ugandan Parliament increased the penalty for homosexuality to death by stoning. That should stop those intolerant homosexuals from criminalizing the Bible.

And by the way, Matthew Shepard, the murder victim for whom the hate crimes bill was named, was not killed because he was gay. According to Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), it was just a robbery. The accusation of homophobia is "a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills." Obviously, no one would ever murder people because of their homosexuality.

I'm currently writing a book on right wing persecution politics titled How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas, to be released in October. For more on the topic, see my Persecution Politics series.