Hate Crimes Bill SB264 - Why be Concerned?

A proposed Hate Crimes bill SB264 filed by Senator Hank Wilkins, IV (D-Pine Bluff) is scheduled to be heard before the Arkansas State Senate Committee on Judiciary Committee Tomorrow, Wed., Feb 14. Click to read proposed bill.

It isdisheartening that a African American Methodist pastor would have introduced this bill which could be used in the long term lead to restrictions on the free speech of his and other Christian churches and pastors to express Scriptures which condemn certain practices as sin.

Although the Bill addresses the protection of First Amendment rights, its introduction of this hate crimes legislation is part of the nation-wide homosexual activist agenda. The First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Sounds fairly innocent, but note the following:
1. once the Hate Crime legistation is established it can be expanded.
2. the legislation creates a protected group not previously recognized as separate from the established norm.
3. the intent of such legislation is not to protect speech but to begin the process of classifying speech as a hate speech. Once the Hate Crime law is established, a newly defined class of people outside of the previously accepted definition of sex (male and female) is set aside as a protected class. In the future this newly protected group can push via legislation or the courts to expand effect their agenda and to expand "hate crime" to presently protected speech.

The long term process is not the protection of free speech but to limit any actions which a protected group believers to be offensive regardless of where it occurs. Protected groups will be allowed broader latitude to express their free speech even in situations totally offensive or hateful to the general public or tonon-protected groups.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution declares that no state may deprive its citizens of “equal protection of the laws.” Hate crimes legislation directly contradicts the letter and the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment by granting greater protection to certain citizens based on their possession of specific politically correct attributes.

The criminal actions to which hate crimes are attached are already illegal and punishable by law. Hate crimes law does nothing to criminalize behavior, but instead criminalizes the thought and motivation behind criminal acts.

If the hate crimes law is enacted, it is only a matter of time before our government, intent on eliminating “root causes” and “criminal” motivations, completely delinks the prosecution of opinions from the prosecution of actions. Some groups are already claiming that the simple assertion that “homosexuality is a sin” constitutes a hate crime. This has already occurred in Canada which established hate crime legislation ahead of the United States.

By codifying sexual orientation as a protected attribute under hate crimes law, gay activists will be able to more effectively press their case for recognition of same-sex “marriage” and domestic partner benefits.
Senate Judiciary Committee members and and their contact information.

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Tags: Arkansas, Hate Crime Bill, hate crimes