A lie about hate crimes legislation courtesy of the Family Research Council

I wish the following batch of lies were an April Fools Day joke:

Please help FRC Action persuade conservatives and centrist Democrats in the Congress to stop a proposed federal "hate crimes" law that could lead to the criminalization of the biblical view of homosexuality in sermons and elsewhere.

. . . Many members of Congress are simply unaware of how dangerous the proposed "hate crimes" law is. FRC Action will warn them that this could lead to simple expressions of religious faith-including sermons and radio broadcasts-being prosecuted as "hate."

. . . A "hate crimes" law is really a "thought crime" law that punishes a person's beliefs-part of the Left's intolerant agenda to silence the voice of Christians and Conservatives in America and eliminate moral restraint.

How would it happen?

A federal "hate crimes" law prohibiting "bodily injury" could be construed by many law enforcement officials and judges to include words that inflict emotional or psychological distress.

That means an "offended" homosexual could accuse a religious broadcaster . . . a pastor . . . Sunday School teacher . . . or other individual of causing emotional injury simply by expressing the biblical view that homosexual behavior is morally wrong and unhealthy.

This abbreviated message came to me courtesy of a Family Research Council (FRC) email. I guess them refusing to take me off of their list is revenge for my report last year on their inaccurate studies.

This lie about hate crimes legislation has been refuted many times but one more time won't hurt.

Hate crimes legislation covers action, not words. Unless those words are expressly telling someone to physically harm someone else. That means that a pastor or Sunday School teacher is in no danger of getting arrested for stating a belief that homosexuality is a sin.

The pastor or Sunday School teacher would be in dangers of getting arrested if he or she expressly tells someone to physically harm gays or lesbians.

Hate crimes laws already exists in cases of race and religion. All this new legislation would do is add sexual orientation to the list of categories. This means if (and let's hope this never happens), a heterosexual man is attacked by a group of gay men for his orientation, those gay men could be prosecuted under hate crimes legislation.

I was surprised that FRC did not include any of those inaccurate anecdotes (i.e. incidents that happened in foreign countries, etc.) that usually lends an aura of phony immediacy to its ramblings.

But this constant lying about hate crimes legislation is a classic example of a "headless monsters," or an idea that, despite being refuted consistently, continues to be repeated as fact. This happens generally because the people repeating the lie is either ignorant of the truth or will ignore the truth because it doesn't suit their purposes.

I'll let you guess which category the FRC falls under.