Now, whether or not you support hate crime statutes or not, I think we can agree that in order to be prosecuted under these laws, a criminal has to commit a criminal act (such as assault, robbery, theft, etc.) against a person based on that person's characteristic(s) included in the law. In other words, speech (threats excluded) is not a criminal act for which a criminal is arrested. Furthermore, hate crime laws apply to every instance of the characteristics they include (for example, "sexual orientation" includes every sexual orientation: bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual, etc.). So, for example, when a group of African-American youths beat up a Caucasian male simply for being white, as was the case in Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993), the Supreme Court case which unanimously upheld hate crime statutes, the crime can be classified as a "hate crime." In other words, hate crime laws can be invoked whenever a victim is chosen because of his or her characteristic (period), not only when the victim is a racial, religious, or sexual minority in society.
Having put that issue aside, fundamentalist Christians are charging that Pennsylvania's revised hate crime statute will be used to censor their sermons and other anti-gay speech:
"This bill is so broad, that if you have an attender at your church who feels offended or intimidated by what is said from the pulpit, you and your church leadership will be receiving certified letters inviting you to either a deposition or a court appearance."
Maybe it's just me, but I cannot find anything in the State of Pennsylvania's legal extracts relating to the statute anything that would lead prosecutors to arrest a minister for preaching anti-gay hate. Other than directly threatening someone, a minister can tell his beaming audience that gays are going to burn in hell to his heart's content.
CFI claims that gays can "intimidate" opponents by using hate crime laws. CFI, however, conveniently leaves out examples of this so-called "intimidation" in action.
"This legislation basically sets up for a lawsuit against any minister or religious leader...who publicly states that certain sexual behavior is immoral or improper. That is a direct violation of the state Constitution."
Again, fundamentalist Christians fail to give any evidence, in the form of examples of other states' experiences, of ministers being arrested or sued for condemning gay people. That's because there is no criminal act involved in simply expressing your contempt for others.
It should be noted that some of the main sponsors of the bill to revise the Ethnic Intimidation Act were self-professed "conservative Christians" and that Pennsylvania Governor Mark S. Schweiker, who signed the bill, is a Republican.
