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.”

Fox host: Cabbie stabbing ‘nothing to do with anti-Muslim sentiment’

By David Edwards

One Fox News host may be in denial about the effects of rampant Islamophobia over the so-called "Ground Zero mosque."

While reporting on the stabbing of a Muslim New York City cab driver, Alisyn Camerota maintained anti-Islamic rhetoric had nothing to do with the crime.

Michael Enright was charged Wednesday with attempted murder as hate crime for allegedly stabbing Ahmed Sharif in his cab Tuesday night. The attack allegedly began with Enright asking Sharif if he was a Muslim. When the cab driver answered yes, the attacker yelled, "As-salaam alaikum. This is a checkpoint, this is checkpoint, motherf**ker, I have to put you down." Sharif claims that Enright then took out a knife and slashed his throat, face and arm.

Enright reportedly volunteered for Intersections International, a pro-Islam global initiative. He had recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan where he filmed military exercises.

Fox News' Steve Doocy explained that liberals were placing the blame on anti-Muslim rhetoric. "Suddenly everybody is going look, that guy went berserk because clearly, this Islamaphobia that is brewing in Lower Manhattan because of the mosque, that's the reason that guy slit his throat!"

Camerota quickly offered a more benign explanation. "It turns out that this kid was just very drunk," she said. "It appears that he flew into this drunken rage."

"Now, why he asked if the driver was Muslim, why they had that exchange in Arabic, only he knows," Camerota continued.

"It seems like this kid has struggled with alcoholism. He's had a history dust-ups with the NYPD. Minor but all alcoholism related and that that's what is probably behind this."

"Nothing to do with anti-Muslim sentiment," she concluded.

But the New York Daily News reports that there is even more evidence that says Enright was harboring anti-Muslim feelings.

When he was arrested Tuesday in midtown, Enright had a personal diary filled with pages of "pretty strong anti-Muslim comments," a police source said.

The source said Enright's journal equated Muslims with "killers, ungrateful for the help they were being offered, filthy murderers without a conscience."

But The Associated Press was told that the notebooks did not contain any anti-Muslim rants.

While Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade said he was aware of the diary, he seemed to dismiss that it could be related to opposition to the Park51 cultural center, an Islamic center and mosque planned near Ground Zero.

"He has kept a diary with some anti-Muslim phrases and beliefs but let's not everyone jump to conclusions and immediately tie his actions to the mosque," said Kilmeade.

This video is from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast Aug. 26, 2010.

Limbaugh Cares About Hate Crimes Only When Whites Are Victims — Even If They’re Not Real Hate Crimes

By Amanda Terkel

Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh took up a story about a fight between three Missouri schoolchildren — the two attackers were black and the victim was white. The event gained extra attention because it was captured on video. Limbaugh cast it as a hate crime — typical of what whites face in “Obama’s America” where “white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering”:

LIMBAUGH: It’s Obama’s America, is it not? Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.

Listen here:

There’s no evidence that the fight was racially motivated. Although the local police captain initially speculated that it may have been, he later backtracked and said, “The incident appears now to be more about a couple of bullies on a bus dictating where people sit.” D’Vante Lott, a student who witnessed the attack and was suspended for laughing at the incident, said the two attackers were basically just trying to act tough.

Limbaugh never cares about racially motivated attacks perpetrated on people of color and has derided hate crimes legislation. He said that such a bill would “carve out protection for perverts” and worried that it didn’t provide enough protections for whites.

Federal authorities are now probing a possible hate crime that happened outside a Georgia Cracker Barrel restaurant. After Army reservist Tasha Hill, who is African-American, politely asked Troy Dale West, who is white, to be careful because he almost hit her daughter when opening the door, he began spewing racial epithets at her and punching and kicking her in front of her daughter. Will Limbaugh also condemn this incident today? (Unlikely, considering that in the past, he has praised slavery, said that James Earl Ray deserved the Medal of Honor, and claimed that “all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson.”)

Limbaugh pushes claim that swastika at Rep. Scott’s office was ‘fake’: ‘I don’t buy this.’

By Matt Corley

Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack legitimized fringe claims that the swastika found at Rep. David Scott’s (D-GA) office was “fake” by asking, “isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?” On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh pushed the same idea, declaring, “I don’t buy this. This is too politically convenient.” “I think the Democrats are doing this themselves,” said Limbaugh. Listen here:

Earlier today, Scott told CNN that his office also received a fax with a picture of President Obama made up as the Joker that had a swastika on his forehead.

Weekly Standard: It’s ‘likely’ that the swastika at Rep. Scott’s office is a ‘fake hate crime.’

By Amanda Terkel

This morning, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) discovered that someone had spray-painted a swastika on the sign at one of his district offices. On Twitter, various right-wing observers immediately began speculating that it was a staged stunt. Now, Weekly Standard writer John McCormack has legitimized these fringe perspectives:

In recent years self-inflicted hate crimes have come into vogue among certain citizens on the right and the left.

Of course sometimes “hate crimes” are real (for example, this spring a College Democrat desecrated crosses at George Washington University with graffiti and condoms). It’s possible that a neo-Nazi actually vandalized Rep. Scott’s offices. But given the fact that the Nazi imagery so neatly dovetails with the left’s smearing of health-care protesters as fascists, isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?

Scott’s press assistant Jennifer Wright was “taken aback — but mainly amused” by the Weekly Standard’s accusation. “Personally I think it’s funny that he thinks a David Scott supporter put the swastika on the sign,” Wright told TPM, “especially given what’s been happening in the media with the Congressman.”

Update Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, put out a statement calling the swastika at Scott's office was a "frightening display of bigotry and ignorance that should not be tolerated by a democratic society."