Would Anti-Hate Laws Make You a Lawbreaker?
Ominous legislation now before Congress contains a hidden agenda that could make criminals of Christians.
In 1988 an evangelical pastor in Sweden opened his Bible to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He informed his congregation (which included homosexuals) that God is still angry at sexual perversion and will judge those who practice it.
Several months later, this pastor was serving a four-week sentence in jail. He had violated Sweden’s “Anti-Hate” statute, a law that protects groups such as homosexuals from “verbal violence” — public statements which might cause them embarrassment because of their sexual orientation.
It is well known that socialist Sweden is the trendsetter in human engineering. What happens there will probably be taken for granted through much of the world 10 or 15 years later.
But laws in America banning criticism of others? “It can’t happen,” most will reply. “ Not with free speech guaranteed by the Constitution!”
But it can. A hidden agenda toward ultimately restraining free speech surfaced among bills introduced this year in Congress. “Hate Crime” legislation was proposed as a first step toward banishing “prejudice” in America. This bill, deceptively titled “The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2001” passed the Senate, but was voted down in the House. Had it passed, it could have laid the foundation for an “Anti-Hate” bureaucracy identical to Sweden’s—a bureaucracy that would redefine “prejudice” so as to make the Christian a lawbreaker. Here’s how our free speech is coming under attack:
History of Anti-Hate Legislation
Let’s briefly review how today’s anti-hate legislation, currently before Congress, came into being.
During 1988, the predominant architect of “Anti-Hate” legislation, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, helped sponsor a nationwide, law-student competition to write a model “Anti-Hate” law for America. This law would criminalize not just physical acts of racial violence but statements that might lead to violence.
On April 20-22, the ADL helped sponsor a conference at New York’s prestigious Hofstra University entitled “Group Defamation and Freedom of Speech: The Relationship Between Language and Violence.” Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich), also a pioneer of the hate crimes legislation now before Congress, was the keynote speaker. The winner of the hate crimes competition was announced as Joseph Ribakoff, a law student from Whittier College in California.
In his prize-winning proposal, Ribakoff asserted that with the upsurge of “Hate Crimes” in America, it will no longer suffice for the government merely to outlaw acts of physical violence; it must ban those forms of verbal communication which cause hatred, suspicion, and possible violence against groups of people. Ribakoff recommends that federal and state censorship boards be established to review all films and videotapes before they are shown publicly, determining if they contain statements that might stimulate hatred or contempt for some group of people. If so, an immediate court order would ban the film in America. Ribakoff: “Any person, persons, or organizations which publicly shows a film or movie before it has been submitted and reviewed by the agency shall have committed a misdemeanor.”
Further, if anyone is a member of an organization that has publicly shown such a film and intends to remain a member, supportive of its goals, he also will have committed a misdemeanor.
Ribakoff’s prize-winning “Group Libel Statute” was not limited to verbal criticism of Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, etc., but would indict anyone who criticized homosexuals as a group, causing “mental anguish” to members of that minority.
