An evangelical pastor in Sweden was alleged to have served a four-week sentence in jail for informing his congregation that God is still angry at sexual perversion and will judge those who practice it. He had violated Sweden’s “Anti-Hate” statute that protects certain groups from “verbal violence” – public statements that might cause embarrassment to these groups.
You might say that this could never happen in America because we have freedom of speech guaranteed by the first amendment of our Constitution. Think again! We now have Senate Bill S. 625, (H.R. 1343), which states that existing federal law is inadequate to address this problem. The short title of this bill is the “Local Law Enforcement Act of 2001” and its purpose is “to provide federal assistance to states and local jurisdictions to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.”
President George W. Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay all oppose the bill because they oppose granting special protections based on sexual orientation. White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said, “The president has said time and time again that all violent crime is hate crime.” Nevertheless, the bill is about to pass!
Few Christian leaders have said much about this hate-crime legislation, but Laura McGee of the Family Research Council is an exception. She wrote that the proposal amounts to “taking one class of citizens and saying their case merits more attention than another case.”
Whatever happened to the proposition of equal protection under the law from the 14th Amendment of our Constitution? If a typical Caucasian American Christian were to be accused of some crime, he would have less protection under the law than someone of another group, because he is not a member of a selected or favored class of citizens. S. 625 bears the hallmarks federal acts, it is designed to put more pressure on the states to carry out the edicts of big stick pressure group in Washington.
One would expect all “conservatives” to be dead set against more social-federalism. On the surface, S. 625 looks as if it should have no chance with the Bush administration on watch. But is this true, and are we safe? Examination of the facts seems to indicate the bill is well on its way to passing in both the House and Senate. Furthermore, We Hold These Truths seriously doubts if President Bush will veto it. Powerful forces behind this legislation will chase these stalwart political personalities in the closet when the time comes to vote on and veto S. 625 unless there is a uniquely strong public outcry. We will examine the power structure behind Hate Crime legislation in future issues of Pharisee Watch.
There is no doubt that the Religious Right knows all about S 625. James Dobson’s powerful Family Research Council is one of the few that have also vigorously opposed hates crimes. Dobson’s website has several articles warning of the dangers of hate legislation; one of the latest of these is by Matt Kaufman. The August 1, 2001 “Focus on the Family Citizen” warns, “it’s not much of a stretch to imagine what could follow when a pastor quotes, say, Leviticus 1822, which calls homosexuality an ‘abomination.’ In fact, in Canada it has already happened.”
Kaufman continues, “Hugh Owens, who in 1997 placed an ad quoting that verse (in Leviticus) and others in a Saskatchewan newspaper, was hauled before the Saskatchewan Human Right Commission. That commission in 1999 recommended he be forced to pay $2000 apiece to each of the complainants, as well as $4500 for the cost of the government’s ‘expert’ witness against him.” Kaufman goes on to state, “Meanwhile, Canadian broadcasters have been required to censor programs by DR. JAMES DOBSON, (our emphasis) Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Jerry Falwell deemed insensitive to homosexuals.” Note that this is in James Dobson’s own magazine telling us he has been censored under a similar bill in Canada.
Dobson knows, and so do all the other Celebrity Christian leaders! Then why is there so little opposition coming from them, and from the local church? So far we find only a few, including Dr. Dobson, writing on the subject, but no organized resistance to the specific legislation from prominent media Christians. For instance, Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, and billionaire Paul Crouch’s Trinity Broadcasting Network are examples of those who do not seem to have mounted any campaign to stop the legislation. They must know S. 625 is about to become law, but they offer no resistance! What are they afraid of?
Let us look at the scoreboard: the Local Law Enforcement Act of 2001 already has 50 co-sponsors in the Senate. That means it has enough votes to pass right now if only one Senator stays home at vote time. Passage in the Senate appears to be unstoppable. The score in the House of Representative is equally grim. Already 185 Congressmen have signed on; thus the bill needs less than 35 votes for a lay down! And our President has NOT promised to veto S-625.
The question every American, especially every churchgoer, should be asking themselves is, Why haven’t I heard about this before? Where has my pastor been? What happened to the Synod, the presbytery, the ward, the Convention, the Diocese, and all the myriad of mail order missionaries and celebrity broadcasters who fill the airwaves with warnings about every supposed political or social crisis? Where are they now? We will answer that question in future editions of Pharisee Watch, and the answer will shock you! Our next edition will examine the behind-the-scenes power groups that wrote and are promoting Hates Crimes legislation here, in Canada, and around the world, and very few of them are homosexuals.
But do not wait. Act now. Call your Congressmen and call every religious figure you know, Right Now!
We hope you will tell them that if this bill passes, it could lay 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. Our free speech under the 1st Amendment of our Constitution is under attack. We need to fight all such laws that intend to undermine our freedom of speech.
We Hold These Truths is making this a priority project. Please join us.
Special Offer: Order Ted Pike’s 80-minute documentary videotape, “Hate Laws Making Criminals of Christians”. (https://whtt.org/catalog/default.php) Reverend Pike documents the hidden power behind hate crime legislation in Canada, the USA and The Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
