Lawsuit By Michigan Conservative Christian Group Seeks To Overturn Hate Crimes Law

JILLIAN RAYFIELD/TPM

Gary Glenn of the Michigan branch of the American Family Association thinks the federal hate crimes law is trying to promote “thought crimes” and “eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda.”

A 6th Circuit Appellate panel in Cincinnati began hearing arguments last week from Glenn and three Michigan ministers, who are suing Eric Holder and the Department of Justice to overturn the expansion of federal hate crimes protections.

The law, called the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, was passed by Congress in 2009 as part of that year’s defense authorization bill. It carves out criminal penalties for anyone who attempts to or “willfully causes bodily injury” to a person and “is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim.”

The suit was filed in February of 2010 on behalf of Glenn and Pastors Jim Combs, Rene Ouellette and Levon Yuille by the Thomas More Law Center, and primarily argues that the law is unconstitutional because it “elevates those engaged in certain deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law.” Or as George Orwell put it, the complaint says, creates a special class of people who are “more equal than others.”

In another reference to Orwell, the suit fears that the law promotes “thought crimes,” as it “criminalizes certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions, and the involvement of such ideas, beliefs, and opinions in a crime will make the crime deserving of federal prosecution.”

The suit calls hate crimes prosecutions “inherently divisive,” and adds that the law “is intended to send a government-endorsed message to those persons who oppose the homosexual agenda on the basis of deeply held religious beliefs,” and to “eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda from the marketplace of ideas by demonizing, vilifying, and criminalizing such beliefs as a matter of federal law and policy.”

The suit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington in September of 2010, who agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder’s argument that “plaintiffs do not allege that they have been prosecuted under the Act, that they have been threatened with such prosecution or that they intend to engage in any conduct prohibited by the Act.”

“The Act does not proscribe speech. It prohibits only violent conduct and includes specific provisions ensuring that it may not be applied to infringe any rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Holder wrote.

“It is entirely speculative that Plaintiff’s conduct would be prosecuted under the Act,” Ludington wrote, according to the Bay City Times, and added that the complaint must be more than a “generalized grievance.”

The mission statement of AFA Michigan is as follows: “This corporation is organized to do all those things necessary to promote the welfare of children by the promulgation of the Judeo-Christian ethic and to do all things necessary to promote, advocate, enhance and preserve the traditional and natural family in our society.”

“Homosexual activists have clearly and openly admitted that they want to see pastors and others who speak out against the homosexual political agenda criminally prosecuted as ‘accessories’ any time a violent crime is committed against an individual who engages in homosexual behavior or cross-dressing,” Glenn wrote on the AFA Michigan site at the time of the initial suit.

“The concern is that simply making a statement on your radio program or from a pulpit could be interpreted at some point in the future as having induced or encouraged someone to commit an act of violence,” Glenn said, Michigan Radio reports.

Glenn, who in 2004 was behind a successful push to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, is currently running for the Republican nomination for Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat.

This suit is just one of many that argues that “religious liberty” is at stake as LGBT rights expand. And, along with the Alliance Defense Fund, the Thomas More Law Center dedicates itself to fighting against “a culture increasingly hostile to Christians and their faith.”

Inhofe Says U.S. Soldiers Will Be Unwilling To Fight And Die For Their Gay Comrades

By Amanda Terkel

In an interview with American Family Association (AFA) radio yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) argued against repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), arguing that basically, members of the U.S. military are too bigoted to be willing to fight and die for the “guy in the next foxhole” if that guy happens to be gay:

INHOFE: For those of us — and I’m one of them — who have gone through the military, gone through basic training, and you stop and think — it just doesn’t make any sense. Second of all, it’s just not working. You have women, men, then you have a third group to deal with, and they’re not equipped to do that.

And you know — you hear the stories all the time. A military guy — I happen to be Army, and Army and Marines always feel that when we’re out there, we’re not doing it for the flag or the country; we’re doing it for the guy in the next foxhole. And that would dramatically change that.

Watch it:

Inhofe shouldn’t assume that all members of the military are as homophobic as he is. A December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has reported that more than 500 U.S. soldiers are “out” to their colleagues and continue to serve. When Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen announced his personal belief that now is the time to repeal DADT, he cited the fact that he has served with gay comrades since 1968.

“I also believe that the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change,” he added, giving members of the military more credit than Inhofe did. “I never underestimate their ability to adapt.” (HT: Right Wing Watch

GOP Lawmakers Use Christian Hate Radio To Concoct Conspiracies, Build Opposition To Health Reform

By Lee Fang The American Family Association (AFA) is a Christian hate group that mobilizes activists around the country to protest gays, Muslims, and other groups it views as either abhorrent or in violation of its narrow view of the Bible. Recently, AFA called for the military to purge all Muslims from the military. The group is perhaps best known for its annual Winter crusade, when AFA leads boycotts against retailers that greet customers with something other than “Merry Christmas.”

Many GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Sam Brownback (KS) and Sen. Mike Johanns (NE), are frequent guests on AFA radio. In the last week, however, AFA has worked closely with right-wing members of the House to build massive opposition to health reform. AFA talk show personality Janet Porter has hosted GOP Reps. Trenk Franks (AZ), Todd Akin (MO), Michele Bachmann (MN), Steve King (IA), Tom Price (GA), Jim Jordan (OH), and others to concoct outlandish conspiracy theories against health reform, while urging listeners to make calls to Congress.

ThinkProgress has compiled clips of Porter and various Republican members of Congress discussing violent revolution against supporters of health care, impeaching Obama, whether health reform violates the Bible, how Democrats will use health care to ration care for Republicans, and the possibility that health reform will give the government power to kill “perhaps each of us”:

CALLER: Well I’m just wondering how much money they’re going to put in the bill here for extra security for all the Congressmen and Senators and Presidents if they get this passed because don’t you think there’s going to be an American revolt against them?

PRICE: Well I’m hopeful the revolt that we see if we get this passed is at the ballot box and that it comes swiftly this year. [...]

KING: The reality of it is, we can’t move anything in this Congress. Nancy Pelosi has a 40 vote advantage, Harry Reid has a 19 vote advantage. We can’t move impeachment of anything if the President of the United States commited some act, and this is hypothetical, completely, that’s so heinous that the American people would reject. Unless the, let me just say, if the committee chairs decided to move on impeachment, it would not happen in this Congress. [...]

BACHMANN: They want to have this [the vote] on the Sabbath, so this to me would be profaning the Sabbath. [...]

PORTER: And I gotta wonder if it’s the bureaucratic committees deciding whether you get health care or not, what if they treat healthcare like the auto industry? What if its just the Republican dealerships that get closed? What if it’s people who don’t support the administration who are told ‘no you can’t get that operation, you can’t get that medication that you need.’ These are frightening times, are they not?

FRANKS: Well they are frightening times and I’ll tell you what we’re moving toward here is a politically driven healthcare system. [...]

AKIN: We pray that you defend us against a great threat, an unbiblical threat, a threat that it is the job of government to steal from other people and redistribute wealth that is clearly against the teaching of your word and against your commandment not to steal. Certainly you have not given governments the authority not to redistribute wealth. [...]

PORTER: Well you hear things like the Slaughter solution which sounds pretty appropriate considering it’s the unborn, it’s the elderly, it’s the disabled and perhaps each of us who might get slaughtered by denying us treatment or paying outright for the killing as with abortion. Self executing rules, I mean this are things, well might be aimed at us. You think they’re going to use this trick to get this thing through.

KING: That seems more and more likely as the hours unfold.

Listen here:

At an AFA-sponsored conference last year, speakers told attendees to get their guns ready for a “bloody battle” with Obama, who was compared to Hitler. At another panel at the same conference, several speakers agreed that Obama is the “first Muslim American President.”

In the mainstream of the Christian religion and across America’s diverse faiths, leaders have come together to support providing health insurance to all Americans, and to end insurance industry abuses. Unfortunately, far right lawmakers, desperate to kill the bill, are leaning on hate radio and conspiracy theories to generate calls to Congress.