By A.M. Novoa
I guess having an opinion and verbalizing that opinion, that does not agree with what is politically correct or popular, is now a possible Hate Crime. In the UK Pauline Howe, a 67-year-old grandmother and Christian, wrote her council expressing a disapproving opinion about a gay pride march that took place in her town. Instead of receiving a letter back acknowledging her letter and respectfully disagreeing with the elderly woman’s opinion, she received a letter warning her that she might be guilty of a hate crime. A short time later two police officers came to her door and lectured the shaken woman about her choice of words. Fortunately she won’t be prosecuted this time, but she has been warned.
Here is the full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222861/Pensioner-complained-gay-pride-march-warned-police-hate-crime.html
Could this be a preview of things to come here in the United States? President Obama signed the Hate Crime Bill into law Wednesday October 28th. The law is not specific as to whether something defined as "hate speech" falls into the category of a "hate crime" in the United States and that lack of specificity in regards to what constitutes a "hate crime" is alarming.
Call me naive but I always thought that all violent crimes were hateful. Generally when an individual commits a terrible crime against another human being there is hate involved.
Free speech is not a crime, even if it might be what one would perceive unpleasant or even offensive at times. When one thinks of crime words like murder and theft come to mind, not words and opinions. You can not force people to agree with you by making laws to control what they say. Sadly, this law will not stop crime. It is another attempt to silence opposition and free thought. It is not protective of minority groups as it claims and what is has accomplished in the UK, coercion and intimidation, it will accomplish here in the United States as well.
It is idealistic and frankly ignorant to believe that you can intimidate and scare people into agreeing with you using coercive laws to accomplish that agenda. Some people will never agree with yours or my choices or opinions and that should be OK. The government or any special interest group will never, ever control a person’s thoughts, but they will try. The best they can hope for is to silence people. That is exactly what they did to Mrs. Howe.
There are serious crimes being committed in our country and in the UK. Should resources have been wasted by sending the police to lecture a grandmother on her opinions?
Regardless of what you believe to be morally correct or not you have to ask yourself if the government should have this power? When did we become so oversensitive and thin-skinned as a nation that we can not agree to disagree? We have legislation that prosecutes violent crimes and we need to apply those laws, not create new ones so vague that they could be used to violate free speech.
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