Reality Check 101

            What drives the fevered imagination of a devoted conservative?  What triggers his or her hate-mongering paranoid delusions?  How does such a person become entangled in misguided fantasies of intrusive government and social decay?  What possible rationale exists for any American to be concerned about their own government sacrificing constitutionally enumerated civil liberties on the altar of unenumerated shadow rights which only liberal courts discover?

            Part of what drives conservatives nuts is the apparent willingness of so many Americans to sacrifice their liberties to a government that not only seeks to micro-mange their lives, but also increasingly does violence to the very contracts that birthed it in the first place.  Most of them still believe that the printed words of those contracts say what they appear to say.  This is opposed to what could be meant or what some masterful stroke of interpretation skews them to intend to mean.  This difference between what was written and what future handlers might make a document mean is fundamental to understanding conservative worries.

            For liberals words are fluid, able to be “clarified” or redefined depending on the nature of the moment.  That is why, the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection for all can be gutted with affirmative action initiatives and hate crimes laws.

            Incredibly, the same people who have striven so persistently to play fast and loose with our Constitution are now asking the American people to trust them with the very generic Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S.909), the Senate version of an already passed House bill.

            The problem is that in law words matter and consequences matter.  For that reason, this and the next paragraph are important to wade through.  In the words of S.909, a hate crime is an offense that involves “actual or perceived…sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability”.  It stipulates that whoever “willfully causes” or “attempts to cause” injury because of “actual or perceived…gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability” will be prosecuted. 

            S. 909 defines hate crimes according to Section 280003 of 28 USC 994 (Title 28).  Section 280003 defines hate crimes as a crime that targets the victim based on “gender, disability, or sexual orientation”.  The only specific definition of sexual orientation as “homosexuality or heterosexuality” in Title 28 is the authorization to collect crime statistics in Part 2 Chap. 33 Para. 534.  The truth is that S.909 defines hate crimes by a citation that uses exactly the same words as the legislation itself.  In spite of claims to the contrary, “sexual orientation is not defined except with respect to collecting statistics. 

            The easiest way to understand the implication of this legislation’s words is to listen to the words of one of its proponents.  During the floor debate on the House’s version, while referring to thirty sexual disorders (DSM-VI-TR), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) stated that this legislation would protect “all of these philias and fetishes and isms that were put forward”.

            This is an absolutely masterful shell game.  S. 909’s First Amendment protections are window dressing.  It is impossible to protect convictions deeply held since the dawn of civilization and simultaneously criminalize the expression of those convictions.

            Words have consequences.  Once sexual preferences are elevated to the level of civil liberties the flood gates are open.  Because federal civil rights law always trumps state statutes and private policy, genuine marriage, the traditional family, the private workplace and conservative speech are no longer be protected.  When the federal government uses its authority to protect morally and religiously objectionable alternative sexual lifestyles, there remains no protection for any individual or organization to exercise dissent in any form.  That is the insipid nature of hate crimes law.