“The 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act”

In a Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel article (scroll down), Stephen Lendman wonders about the actual effects of the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act: “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal alliance partnered with over 300 ministries and organizations, fears that pastors calling homosexuality a sin may be linked to a hate crime if a parishioner harms someone for their sexual orientation . . . “ Lendman continues: “The new law, however, prosecutes ‘crimes of violence,’ defined by section 16, title 18, US code . . . “

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley writing at Townhall in June anticipated Lendman’s retort.  Erik wrote: “There is only one difference between an assault not classified as a hate crime and an assault that is classified as a hate crime: the beliefs of the individual committing the crime . . . Behind a law that criminalizes the beliefs of a criminal defendant is a governmental disapproval of those beliefs . . . It would be the first time that the federal government has formally written into law a potentially punitive disapproval of the belief that homosexual behavior is bad, wrong, problematic, or even simply not normal.”

See also this ADF News Release: ADF: New ‘hate crimes’ law drives another nail into First Amendment’s coffin