Note: Click here for a hate crimes fact sheet.
Under “hate-crimes” laws, could pastors risk jail time and big fines for expressing the biblical view of homosexuality?
Absolutely.
Just ask Stephen Boissoin, a Canadian pastor who wrote a letter in June to the editor of his local newspaper calling the homosexual agenda “wicked.”
“From kindergarten class on,” he wrote, “our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.”
The letter caught the attention of a human-rights activist at the University of Calgary, who filed a complaint of “hate-mongering” against Boissoin. The professor pointed to the case of a young homosexual who was beaten up two weeks later as evidence that such expressions incite violence.
Boissoin, who said he was just trying to create “spirited debate,” now faces charges before the Alberta Human Rights Commission. He could be fined by the commission and referred to a court for criminal proceedings. Canada added “sexual orientation” as a cause for hate-crime prosecution under a new federal law in 2004.
Or ask Ake Green, the Swedish pastor who became the most famous victim of such hate-speech prosecutions several years ago after preaching a sermon in which he termed homosexuality “abnormal” and a “perversion.” Green was sentenced to a month in jail under Sweden’s hate-crimes law, but was acquitted by Sweden’s Supreme Court. The acquittal came after his attorney threatened to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Christian legal experts warn that U.S. judges are increasingly taking foreign and international laws into account in their deliberations. As Brett Harvey of the Alliance Defense Fund told Family News in Focus, “It’s very important to us in order to protect American interests to keep an eye on what happens in Canada (and other countries), because that has a direct influence on the judges here in the United States.”
Ashley Horne, federal issues analyst for Focus on the Family Action, warned that cases such as Boissoin’s demonstrate that a federal hate-crimes law could be used to punish religious free speech.
“In this country, anyone who ‘induces’ a federal crime can also be charged under federal law,” she said. “So, if a parishioner who listened to his pastor’s sermon on the biblical view of homosexuality later committed a violent act against a homosexual, the parishioner could be charged with a federal ‘hate crime,’ and his pastor could be charged federally for ‘inducing a hate crime.’ ”
TAKE ACTION
Congress is going on its August recess. Call or visit your senators in their district offices and register your opposition, urging them to reject the Hate Crimes amendment to the Defense Authorization bill or any similar attempt to grant special protections based on sexual orientation.
You can find numbers for your senators' district offices on the U.S. Senate Web site. You may have to dig around a little to find each one.
