Ex-Gay Ads Oppose Hate-Crime Laws
Gay rights activist and author Wayne Besen comments on a newly launched exgay ad campaign (ad in PDF format):
The “ex-gay” ministries launched a new, misleading ad campaign today that mocks hate crime victims. It ran in the Orlando Sentinel, The Indianapolis Star, The Nevada Appeal, and Roll Call to harass senators concerned about stopping hate violence.
The ad features four “ex-gays” and reads:
“Hate Crime Laws Say We Were More Valuable As Homosexuals Than We Are Now As Former Homosexuals.”
This abusive ad is disgusting and vomit-worthy – and I must say, I’ve never used those two adjectives in the same sentence before. But to exploit hate crimes as a sneaky backdoor way to promote an “ex-gay” message is just vile and shows a lack of character.
It is also false advertising. Hate crimes laws are important because they give law enforcement the tools they need to solve such awful crimes. Furthermore, they do not pit one group against another since all Americans are covered. For example, hate crime legislation covers real or perceived “sexual orientation.” This means gay, straight or bisexual.
Exodus lobbyist Randy Thomas says the exgay ads join a broader ad campaign that has reached seven newspapers thus far.
Hate-crime laws enhance punishment of crimes based on a perpetrator’s intent to harm an entire class of persons. The legislation at issue would add sexual orientation as a class, along with traits that are inborn (race) and chosen (religion).
The ads, however, fail to disclose that the legislation protects heterosexuals and bisexuals. The ads also decline to say clearly whether the sponsors oppose existing law covering hate crimes based upon the victim’s perceived race or religion.
To support the claim that hate-crime law is fundamentally biased, the ads cite apples and oranges: they compare cases in which a violent crime was committed because the victim was gay, to crimes that did not target the victim’s perceived heterosexuality.
Other ads (PDF) [removed or relocated by Randy Thomas from his blog but archived elsewhere] target specific U.S. senators, claim again that hate-crime laws offer unequal protection, and blame hate-crime laws for the arrest of Repent America activists after they disrupted Philadelphia’s Outfest and disobeyed police in October 2004.
Repent America is a Philadelphia-area group that disrupts government meetings and public events and commits illegal public acts requiring arrest in order to publicize its concerns. One of the Repent America founder’s goals is a fundamentalist federal government that makes homosexuality punishable by execution according to Biblical law. (Previous XGW coverage.) The ads fail to disclose Repent America’s intentionally illegal disruption of public events, and fail to indicate what, if any, illegal actions were committed by gay demonstrators at recent exgay and antigay events.
The ad campaign was paid for by the American Family Association and signed by numerous religious-right political organizations. The exgay ads do not name the four pictured individuals for whom the ad claims to speak; Thomas simply refers to them as “friends,” and the ad suggests that they are anonymous “former homosexuals” — a political label that is also left undefined.
Taken together, the ads confuse readers about the legislation; muddy important distinctions that separate hate crime, civil disruption, and free speech; and undermine effective public dialogue about free speech and violent crime.
David I’m a little confused by your statement:
“The solution is not to tell people what they can and cannot say – no matter how hurtful – but to continue our efforts as society evolves until people shout them off the stage for themselves.”
You don’t want to tell people what they can and cannot say, but you want others to shout them off the stage? Isn’t shouting them off the stage telling them what they can and cannot say?
[I realize this thread is aging, but I find the topic compelling, and continue to learn about myself as I ponder these things]
David said:
Yes…but I don’t feel that this addresses this point: judges and juries (especially those predisposed against particular groups) will not consider this factor unless it is made plain via federal legislation that they should legally consider it. In fact, people that dislike homosexuals will only consider factors that suit their prejudice. As an example again, I urge you to examine the case of Matthew Limon in KS. You will see that because his crime was male on male, he was treated very differently than if it had been male on female (due to an unequal “Romeo & Juliet” law that only covered male on female transgressions), and his disability, which I consider the most noteworthy anti-discrimination issue, was used by judges in the appellate ruling against him rather than as a mitigating factor. The then present un-inclusive legal language specifically allowed the activation of harsher sentencing against him than would have been the case with specific inclusive language. This illustrates how the law as stated influences rulings. I only bring his case up in this forum as an example of how prejudiced ruling bodies will treat some groups differently or ignore them, if for no other reason than it is politically expedient to do so. I realize it is neither a hate-crime nor ex-gay situation…it just shows how prejudice affects local rulings. In a conservative state where they may follow public opinion, they may even ignore obvious mitigating circumstances (Limon’s mental disability) in order to make a political statement (“no to gays!”).
If you prefer a more topical, but hypothetical example, consider this: Two men in a rural area of very conservative population beat and kill a cowboy on the side of a lonely stretch of highway. They had seen him around town and followed him after he left a bar…whatever… The facts presented show that they killed him only because they thought he was a homosexual. Without specific legislation that allows prosecutors to require the consideration of the “hate-crime” aspect, these men are given minimum sentences. No aggravating aspects are considered at all. Most people in the rural community hate gays anyway, and the injustice of a minimum sentence stands as ruled. The severity of the crime is not taken into account because the law does not specifically make it clear that it is to be considered more heinous.
If you do not feel there is any reason to consider such a crime more severe, then we disagree on a completely different point than the necessity for hate-crime legislation…we disagree on what qualifies the level of “heinousness”. I will plainly state that to kill someone for no other reason than you hate “that kind of folk” is more heinous than many other different kinds of killings…not that murder is in any way acceptable…this kind is just more reprehensible. The victim has done nothing personally to the killer to earn his wrath, the killer gains no profit from his crime, and all that remains is the most deviant and disgusting kind of satisfaction in ending another human being’s life. The naked brutality of that act is, in my opinion, deserving of harsher punishment.
In my opinion, it behooves us as a society to clearly state in our legal code all aspects as we recognize them that should influence the judging of crimes. Anti-gay groups do not want sexual orientation to be included in hate-crime legislation, because they are quite happy to continue encouraging the hatred and marginalization of homosexuals. We must not yield! I would rather have redundant legal code than leave them any opportunity to darken justice with their hatred.
Read the (now overturned) appellate court ruling against Matthew Limon. I think it is fascinating in how the jurists used the available legal codes and precedents to make an obvious prejudicial ruling (as noted by the dissenting judge). http://www.kscourts.org/kscases/ctapp/2004/20040130/85898.htm
Well, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that even those of us who don’t like the idea of “special circumstance” hate crimes legislation think that the “MORE VALUABLE as homosexuals” ad campaign is complete b******t.
Apparently the ex-gays behind this ad campaign believe it is ok to completely lie (8th Commandment) in order to achieve their goals.
Posted by: Jay at December 15, 2005 07:44 PM
Jay, your comments on this are interesting and make some sense to me. I will study the case you cited and think about it. If I gave the impression that my mind is made up on this matter, it isn’t. What you cite reminds me of similar Federal crime law enacted to counter the lack of justice going on in (mostly) Southern jurisdictions during the 50′s and 60′s (and some would say up to the present) concerning crimes against blacks. Thanks for the food for thought.
Kurt said:
Well, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that even those of us who don’t like the idea of “special circumstance” hate crimes legislation think that the “MORE VALUABLE as homosexuals” ad campaign is complete b******t.
Without a doubt, and probably a fitting close to this interesting thread.
David
Sorry, I missed this comment and thought I should reply to clarify.
Randi said:
David I’m a little confused by your statement:
“The solution is not to tell people what they can and cannot say – no matter how hurtful – but to continue our efforts as society evolves until people shout them off the stage for themselves.”
You don’t want to tell people what they can and cannot say, but you want others to shout them off the stage? Isn’t shouting them off the stage telling them what they can and cannot say?
I thought about that verbiage before I submitted but was too tired to reword it
While I was being somewhat figurative when I said “shout them off stage”, what I was arguing against here was making what they say illegal. But even if taken literally, shouting someone down may be uncivil, but it’s not the same as using the force of law to shut them up. I hope that helps.
David
grantdale at December 15, 2005 10:20 AM
This is kinda/sorta correct, but it is incomplete.
One, in the last free election in Germany, the Nazi party won a plurality of the vote (some 44%). They formed a coalition government (which was not unusual in Germany then, or even today) with a small right-wing party, which had acquired 8% of the vote. 44% and 8% is 52%. Since the Nazi party had won the plurality of the vote, the president, von Hindenburg, was required to allow them to try to form a government, which they did. As an analog, in the recent election, the president was required to allow CDU’s Andrea Merkel–whose party won a plurality with only 35% of the vote–to try to form a government, and she did, a “grand coalition” with the SPD. It is probably an unstable government–I would predict another election within a year.
Two, it was not unusual for other upstart political parties to have the Nazi analogs to the SturmAbteilung (SA, the brownshirts). Streetfighting among the various gangs was quite common in the 1920s. It was largely the result of an attempted coup in the early 1920s by communists imported from Russia, the miss-management of the Treaty of Versailles, and other things.
Three, Neville Chamberlain would never have to had to negotiate if Britain had joined France in opposing the Nazi’s re-occupation of the Rheinland in 1936. Hitler, against all of the advice of his senior military, chose to re-occupy the Rheinland, against the advice of the senior brass of the Wehrmacht (the army). This was in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. The French asked for Britain’s help in opposing this action. The British government turned a deaf ear. If the British and French could have conspired to eject Hitler from the Rheinland, WWII in the European theater probably never would have occurred. Of course, it had been occurring in the Pacific theater since….1933.
Four, the idea in the US that they would be insulated from the war(s)–the war in Europe, the war in North Africa, and the war in the Pacific–was idiotic in the extreme. The Allies in Europe had the Russians who largely defeated the Nazis. My father was a bomber pilot going up from North Africa through Italy. But it was largely the three-front war, the Russians from the east, the Amis&Brits through Italy from the South, and finally D-day from the west, that defeated the Nazis.
The Americans–and the Australians–almost lost the war in the Pacific. Fortunately for us, they did not. The battle at Midway was the turning point in that theater. Up untill then, it was nip-and-tuck.