Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - The expanded law is vitally needed to curb hate crimes/Ministers fear law would muzzle religious speech/Do we hate laws?
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - The expanded law is vitally needed to curb hate crimes
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
The two men eyed the slight, gay university student as he entered the eatery with a female friend.
"Hey faggot!" a voice beckoned toward Brett Timmerman. "Why don't you take your faggot ass back to Madison?"
Before he knew it, Timmerman's tormentors greeted him with a slap, gobs of spit and a swift blow to the head as he was tackled to the ground, according to a lawsuit he filed against his attackers.
Timmerman is waiting to testify about the vicious 2005 attack that ruptured his ear drum. While his physical wounds have mended, the Wisconsin man's psychological scars linger -- just as they do for a black mother of two who heard chants of "Burn mother - - - - - -, burn!" outside her Philadelphia house before discovering racial slurs and fake blood splashed across her steps.
Like other hate crime targets, Timmerman still has nightmares.
Based on FBI statistics, a hate crime is committed once every hour in this country. One out of six of those victims are targeted because they are gay, according to an attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. These statistics don't capture all attacks because victims are often too embarrassed and too afraid to speak out. The data also doesn't track attacks on transgendered people.
Attacks against homosexuals have remained consistent for several years. Gay rights activists say they have no reason to believe attacks against homosexuals are on the rise, but brutal attacks such as the 1998 torture and slaying of Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence and left for dead in Laramie, Wyo., are a reminder of just how savage hatemongers can be.
That's why the passage of a pending Senate bill, aptly named after Shepard, is considered vital to curb hate crimes and the overall violence that has pervaded our society.
The proposed act simply extends the existing federal hate crimes law -- which now levies additional punishment in cases of violence when race and ethnicity is a prime motivator for the attacks -- to protect homosexuals and the transgendered.
Proponents of the act say the new protections would not legitimize gay lifestyles or keep anyone from using homophobic slurs -- as long as violence is not involved. The few religious leaders and right-wing leaders worried that it would prevent them from spouting their anti-gay rhetoric should stop misleading their flocks, say gay activists.
"They've been preaching that [anti-gay rhetoric] since the dawn of day," said Laura Velazquez, anti-violence project manager for the Center on Halsted. "We're not trying to stop that. What we're trying to emphasize is a need to prevent any type of hate crime or violence."
Timmerman's attorney Jim Madigan, of Chicago's Lambda Legal, believes having expanded protections for gays would have brought some relief to his client: "It'll certainly make those who target certain people think twice."
Rummana Hussain
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Ministers fear law would muzzle religious speech
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
Gays are going to hell -- that's what some ministers have been preaching and want to keep on preaching. But a proposed hate crimes law would stop them from saying so -- at least that's what several believe so firmly that they took out an ad in USA Today to warn churchgoers that the law would curb their religious speech.
Arch-conservative ministers complain that their denunciation of homosexuality is mischaracterized by gay-rights activists as hate speech.
But if religious speech is construed as hate speech under the terms of this proposed law -- the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 -- ministers may be thwarted, says Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.
That's why Jackson and more than 30 other black ministers around the country signed a full-page ad that ran July 11 in USA Today protesting the hate crimes bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3, awaiting discussion by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Jackson says if parishioners commit a hate crime upon hearing their minister's admonitions, those ministers could be held liable.
"They are taking loopholes in the legislation that would create the opportunity to muzzle the church, the pulpit," Jackson says. "It's landmark legislation: For the first time sexual orientation is raised to an equal status with race or creed in American law. I don't think somebody else's lifestyle preference should be made equal to my struggle as a black man. [But] my primary argument with this bill is religious liberty."
Both versions of the House and Senate bills provide federal money, up to $100,000 a year, to help local police solve hate crimes when they've exhausted local resources and expertise. Each version covers not only people attacked based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender and disability. The proposed law specifically says it cannot usurp constitutional law -- like the kind that guarantees free speech.
But Jackson says additional protections are not needed. He worries that such legislation gags the church's position on homosexuality.
Not all religious folks agree.
The Rev. Mel White, 67, a gay minister and the author of Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, called Jackson disingenuous: "At the heart of this imaginary complaint is the fundamentalist Christians' belief that . . . God will remove his hand of blessing from this country" if homosexuals are protected. Under that belief, he says, "America is doomed."
Mainstream black religious leaders don't necessarily see the law as a threat to their ministries. The Rev. James Meeks, a state senator and pastor of Salem Baptist Church, says: "Ministers will still have the full right to be able to share the Scriptures as they interpret it. They always have, and they always will."
But is that speech hateful?
"They can say it, and I can say they are wrong," White says. "That is what America is about."
Deborah Douglas
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Do we need to expand our national hate crimes law?
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
THE ISSUE: Do we need to expand our national hate crimes law? Of 190,000 documented hate attacks a year, 18 percent are targeted at homosexuals, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Gay activist groups say it's about time we had a law that protects homosexuals and transgendered people. Currently, the law covers victims targeted for their race and ethnicity. At least one group of ministers fears the proposed law would curb their religious speech. They say they won't be able to voice their beliefs that homosexuality is a sin and that the gay lifestyle is an abomination. They oppose including homosexuals in a national hate crimes law because they worry their preachings would be construed as hate speech and they'd be blamed for advocating violence. Editorial board writers Rummana Hussain and Deborah Douglas explore the issue
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
The two men eyed the slight, gay university student as he entered the eatery with a female friend.
"Hey faggot!" a voice beckoned toward Brett Timmerman. "Why don't you take your faggot ass back to Madison?"
Before he knew it, Timmerman's tormentors greeted him with a slap, gobs of spit and a swift blow to the head as he was tackled to the ground, according to a lawsuit he filed against his attackers.
Timmerman is waiting to testify about the vicious 2005 attack that ruptured his ear drum. While his physical wounds have mended, the Wisconsin man's psychological scars linger -- just as they do for a black mother of two who heard chants of "Burn mother - - - - - -, burn!" outside her Philadelphia house before discovering racial slurs and fake blood splashed across her steps.
Like other hate crime targets, Timmerman still has nightmares.
Based on FBI statistics, a hate crime is committed once every hour in this country. One out of six of those victims are targeted because they are gay, according to an attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. These statistics don't capture all attacks because victims are often too embarrassed and too afraid to speak out. The data also doesn't track attacks on transgendered people.
Attacks against homosexuals have remained consistent for several years. Gay rights activists say they have no reason to believe attacks against homosexuals are on the rise, but brutal attacks such as the 1998 torture and slaying of Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence and left for dead in Laramie, Wyo., are a reminder of just how savage hatemongers can be.
That's why the passage of a pending Senate bill, aptly named after Shepard, is considered vital to curb hate crimes and the overall violence that has pervaded our society.
The proposed act simply extends the existing federal hate crimes law -- which now levies additional punishment in cases of violence when race and ethnicity is a prime motivator for the attacks -- to protect homosexuals and the transgendered.
Proponents of the act say the new protections would not legitimize gay lifestyles or keep anyone from using homophobic slurs -- as long as violence is not involved. The few religious leaders and right-wing leaders worried that it would prevent them from spouting their anti-gay rhetoric should stop misleading their flocks, say gay activists.
"They've been preaching that [anti-gay rhetoric] since the dawn of day," said Laura Velazquez, anti-violence project manager for the Center on Halsted. "We're not trying to stop that. What we're trying to emphasize is a need to prevent any type of hate crime or violence."
Timmerman's attorney Jim Madigan, of Chicago's Lambda Legal, believes having expanded protections for gays would have brought some relief to his client: "It'll certainly make those who target certain people think twice."
Rummana Hussain
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Ministers fear law would muzzle religious speech
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
Gays are going to hell -- that's what some ministers have been preaching and want to keep on preaching. But a proposed hate crimes law would stop them from saying so -- at least that's what several believe so firmly that they took out an ad in USA Today to warn churchgoers that the law would curb their religious speech.
Arch-conservative ministers complain that their denunciation of homosexuality is mischaracterized by gay-rights activists as hate speech.
But if religious speech is construed as hate speech under the terms of this proposed law -- the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 -- ministers may be thwarted, says Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.
That's why Jackson and more than 30 other black ministers around the country signed a full-page ad that ran July 11 in USA Today protesting the hate crimes bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3, awaiting discussion by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Jackson says if parishioners commit a hate crime upon hearing their minister's admonitions, those ministers could be held liable.
"They are taking loopholes in the legislation that would create the opportunity to muzzle the church, the pulpit," Jackson says. "It's landmark legislation: For the first time sexual orientation is raised to an equal status with race or creed in American law. I don't think somebody else's lifestyle preference should be made equal to my struggle as a black man. [But] my primary argument with this bill is religious liberty."
Both versions of the House and Senate bills provide federal money, up to $100,000 a year, to help local police solve hate crimes when they've exhausted local resources and expertise. Each version covers not only people attacked based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender and disability. The proposed law specifically says it cannot usurp constitutional law -- like the kind that guarantees free speech.
But Jackson says additional protections are not needed. He worries that such legislation gags the church's position on homosexuality.
Not all religious folks agree.
The Rev. Mel White, 67, a gay minister and the author of Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, called Jackson disingenuous: "At the heart of this imaginary complaint is the fundamentalist Christians' belief that . . . God will remove his hand of blessing from this country" if homosexuals are protected. Under that belief, he says, "America is doomed."
Mainstream black religious leaders don't necessarily see the law as a threat to their ministries. The Rev. James Meeks, a state senator and pastor of Salem Baptist Church, says: "Ministers will still have the full right to be able to share the Scriptures as they interpret it. They always have, and they always will."
But is that speech hateful?
"They can say it, and I can say they are wrong," White says. "That is what America is about."
Deborah Douglas
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Do we need to expand our national hate crimes law?
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 18, 2007
THE ISSUE: Do we need to expand our national hate crimes law? Of 190,000 documented hate attacks a year, 18 percent are targeted at homosexuals, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Gay activist groups say it's about time we had a law that protects homosexuals and transgendered people. Currently, the law covers victims targeted for their race and ethnicity. At least one group of ministers fears the proposed law would curb their religious speech. They say they won't be able to voice their beliefs that homosexuality is a sin and that the gay lifestyle is an abomination. They oppose including homosexuals in a national hate crimes law because they worry their preachings would be construed as hate speech and they'd be blamed for advocating violence. Editorial board writers Rummana Hussain and Deborah Douglas explore the issue
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