More on "What Is a Hate Crime?"

First Amendment: Flushed Away by Hate Crimes?

Tony Perkins - Family Research Council

While some men were arrested for distributing religious books, another has been charged for flushing one. In a bizarre case at Pace University, former student Stanislav Shmulevich has been accused of taking two copies of the Koran from a "meditation room" and throwing them in toilets. While no one could legitimately defend his actions, it likewise seems indefensible that University officials bowed to demands by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and charged Shmulevich with a hate crime in addition to the initial charges of "criminal mischief." The Islamic community has every right to be express disdain for Shmulevich's actions, but not to insist on extra criminal punishment for his thoughts, which is what "hate crime" laws provide for. Supporters of the proposed federal hate crime bill defend it as targeting only acts of violence. Yet New York's law apparently targets vandalism as well. How long will it be before mere speech expressing disapproval (be it of Islam, or of homosexuality) is also criminalized, as in several other countries? This is the slippery slope of the "hate crimes" mentality, and we shouldn't take even one step down it. When Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in urine and called it "art," Christians condemned the act--but demanded only that the taxpayers not pay for it, not that he be jailed for a "hate crime."

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Here is what Michelle Malkin had to say on Monday nite's O'Reilly Factor. In this case Michelle stops Bill O'Reilly's spin.

Link: sevenload.com

& here is what Bryan from HotAir had to say in the article accompanying the video:

Should Stanislav Shmulevich face felony hate crimes charges?

Bill O’Reilly says yes. Michelle disagrees.

If the law were applied fairly, O’Reilly might have a leg to stand on only in the sense that you would have equal protection under the law. I personally believe that hate crimes laws are bad based on first principles of freedom of speech, expression and assembly, but you could at least argue that we would all face the same justice for doing the same or analogous offensive things. But we all know that that isn’t the way things work in the real world.

Desecrate a Bible and nothing happens to you. Put a crucifix in a jar of urine and you get rewarded with taxpayer funds. Promote US sovereignty security and someone, probably on the White House staff, will call you a racist. But at least you won’t face any charges. Desecrate a Koran, and get slapped with felonies. That’s not fair.

These photos were taken in New York City in February 2006. Not Pakistan. Not Tehran. New York City. Did anyone in any of these photos face any charges?

No. Nor should they have.

Now, I find these signs very offensive. They are in fact intended to offend. But no one took them up with the police, no one pressured any administration anywhere to take action, and no charges have been filed.

I don’t want the people holding them charged with crimes based on those offensive signs, and I’m not backed up by a credible threat of force to get them charged with anything even if I wanted to. I believe in free speech. For the record, the London protest sign cases were different, in that the protesters were inciting the overthrow of the British government and murder. They deserved charges based on that. Stanislav Shmulevich didn’t incite murder; he protested quietly and nonviolently.

The agitators at CAIR and in the MSA at Pace don’t believe in free speech as concerns Islam and the Koran. If they did, they would have treated Shmulevich as a protester with whom they disagreed, but who has his right to free speech including saying and doing things that they personally find offensive. They believe that we all should treat the Koran as they do in their strict and chosen way of belief, as governed by sharia. And they have the credible threat of violence backing them up, so they’re getting their way.

If we go down the road of letting the police charge felonies for putting a book in a toilet as a nonviolent protest, we are going down the road of ending free speech for anyone in this country who is not a Muslim. It really is that simple. That is obviously not what O’Reilly intends and he means well, but as the cliche says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, the road to sharia is paved with PC thinking that’s based on good intentions.

Hate ought not be a crime. It’s an emotion. Hate can lead to crimes, but so can many other emotions and attitudes that we haven’t (yet) criminalized. Greed, envy, lust, jealousy — all of these can lead to crimes just as often, if not more often, than hate does. Are we going to criminalize all of them, too?

Ironically, if the sharia pushers get their way, yes, we probably will criminalize all of those things at some point. And that, like the hate crimes laws we have now, will be done with the best of someone’s intentions. And, like the hate crimes laws we have now that create felonies out of putting a book in a toilet, we’ll get the worst of consequences.