http://www.afa.net/hatecrime2.asp

Well said. I'm always baffled by the idea that cleaning up speech changes the underlying attitudes. I always thought that we should teach to not hate, then there would be no hate speech.  

These idiots dont need to write more laws, they simply need to inforce the ones already there.

You cant advocate violence, be it against your neighbor, spouse or group.

There is no such thing as a "Jelocy Crime" laws. There are laws that say you cant kill someone because you caught them in bed with your spouse. The law is quite simple, you cant kill someone because you dont like them or something they did.

BUT our goverment cant punish you because of your thoughts or your emotions. They should only detain you when YOU violate someone else's rights. But they cant and should not create laws punishing you for your thoughts.

Congress unfortunatly seems to value popular demand over the First Amendment.

I dont like the fact that some preachers condemn homosexuality. I dont like that they condemn me for being an atheist. But if they are just saying, "Atheists will go to hell" that is their right and IS NOT a call to violence even if I find it offensive.

You should not be punished MORE OR LESS severly than say if you had assaulted or murderd your spouse.

No one is obligated to like me and I damn sure dont want to live under a goverment that plays thought police.

I only read the article, not the bill. I hope you're right. Unfortunately here in Australia we don't have the same protections for freedom of speech and we are a little too prepared to give up individual freedoms to make sure noone's offended.

I think thats where things get a bit fuzzy. Its wrong to kill someone, but telling someone to kill someone is a bit different.

Apparently fighting words are a part of the limits of "free"speech. So that kinda makes a lot of the laws we have right now and creating, apparently, over kill.

I think people should be warry of advocating violence, but its not like revolutions get very far without it. Of course thats treason till you win  

I think anti-discrimination laws are a good thing. I am generally a proponent of freedom of speech unless such speech is harmful to other's liberty, based upon irrelevant natural differences. It's the same reason you have to stamp out bullying in schools. I'm quite glad there are discrimination laws in my country. Generally the consequences of such laws are a good thing, everyone generally gets along quite fine, racism, facism, homophobia are culturally frowned upon. There is a drive towards multi-cultural harmony.

I was bullied for most of my time in primary school and high school. Even today if someone says something not altogether nice to me, even if it is a joke I can't treat it as such. There are quite probably some issues I haven't quite put behind me there. The point is that I don't see that there is all that big a difference between discrimination based on irrelevant differences and playground bullying.

You would want to stop the playground bully calling the class nerd a worthless little shit or whatever. In fact he would be punished for it. So why does it apply any differently for adults?

Someone expresing a belief that homosexuals are disgusting is not discrimination. It's hurtful and it's ignorant but unless they are acting on that belief it is not discrimination.

There are a few differences between the two situations.

1) Bullying in schools involves children. Children shoudl be protected from things adults can be expected to deal with.

2) Bullying is directed at an individual, hate speech or discrimination is directed at groups.

3) Children are stuck in school. They are required to attend and forced to share classes with other children who may be bullying them. They cannot get away from it if they don't like it. If someone is giving a speech that offends you you can usually leave or change the channel.

You cannot force harmony with social engineering. Bad ideas need to die in their own time, not just be hidden away so they cannot be discussed.This just leads to bitterness on the part of those who still hold those ideas and makes them less likely to outgrow them.

I was too. I was terrified of going to school. I think that my academic and social development were affected greatly by the bullying. I still have difficulty dealing with people.

In school, my only goal was to get to the end of the day, I never did anything but the bare minimum of homework because my attitude was I'd already suffered through the school day so I wasn't going to bring any part of it into the time I had away from that helhole. I made it into university (fortunately my intelligence compensated for my lazyness) but even there, where there was no bullying I found it very difficult to look at classes as something other than time I just had to survive until the end of.

At parties (when I  forget that I hate them and go anyway), or any other social situation with lots of people I don't know, I find it close to impossible to even start a conversation.

So I agree, bullying sucks. But what I did learn growing up is that authority figures doing something to stop the bullying only stopped it when the authority figure was looking. In some cases it encouraged it because it became a challenge to sneak in as much bullying as they could when the teacher's back was turned.

Respect does not come from being ordered to respect someone. 

ParanoidAgnostic, I don't know how to deal with your comment here

On one hand, I must say that my belief that homosexualty is wrong is not ignorant. It 100% based on the bible (which I hold as 100% true and reflects God's beliefs on any given subject.) So I have a belief that only God can determine what is Good. He has determined homosexualty is not good. Therefore, I must be against it and must consider it wrong.  As for being hurtful, sometimes the truth hurts, but it is still the truth.

However, your use of the word disgusting makes me think that maybe you wasn't directly refering to my beliefs and maybe ment it in a more extreme case like Fred Phelps.

Hey Brian37, sorry it's late (we'll actually its early, but I haven't been asleep) I should have included a lot more exceptions then what I did when it comes to why you did something, becuase as you stated it does matter more then I said. Clearly some "why's" do matter, but I don't think discrimination should be one of them. 

Well that cut both ways. Many posters here post passioate posts about fighting absurd claims and talk about the dammage religion has caused world wide. But I would hope most here take personal responsibility for their own actions and understand that criticising, blaspheming or poking fun of something DOES NOT INTITLE ANYONE to take the law into their own hands or act out in violence because you dont like something.

If I had a nickle for every time I was called a peice of scum for not believing in god. If I had a nickle for every time I read a post equating atheists to hitler or promotion of pediophilia. That would not intitle any Christian to cause me phisical harm simple because they heard someone else say, "I dont like those atheists". Nor would it give me the right to punch them in the face for saying mean things.

IT CUTS BOTH WAYS. So my answer is simple. NO, that preacher is not responsible for what someone else does unless he is saying, "Go beat up gays" or "go kill gays". THAT IS A CRIME

Just as it would be a crime to say, "Go beat up my wife" or "go kill my wife".

If there is one thing I hate more than bigotry is the idea that goverment can solve the problem through playing thought police. If someone says something to me I dont like, I cant harm them. But I can use my own voice to counter their garbage.

I hate polliticall correctness. Again, it is not the intent of the "lets get along". It is using goverment as part of the tactic to play thought police.

No one should be forced to supress their emotions. But everyone is required by law to control their physicall actions and neither the atheist or Christian, Jew or gay is allowed to call for physical harm. Nor are we allowed to react in violence because someone offends us.

Well intended theists and atheists are going to screw everyone out of "free speech" with their pollitically correct attitudes. These people, as I said before, dont understand that they may not be the one in power deciding what is "offensive" or what "hate" is.

I would rather stick to common law and agree not to physically harm my neighbor no matter what is said. I am allowed to like or dislike whom I want and I should be able to express my blasphemy. Nor do I expect every Christian to like my by government force. But both sides should agree not to act out in physicall violence because the other side says something the other side doesnt like.

THE LAWS ARE ALREADY IN PLACE, we dont need thought police being our concious via government force. It is a bad idea and everyone will get screwed with that attitude. 

For the very reasons I state above putting the word "hate" as part of law language is a BAD IDEA. You are trying to justify the intent and I am talking about the exicution.

I have the right to hate whom I want. I can call Pat Robertson a peice of scum and there isnt a damned thing he can do about it. He can call me a peice of scum and there is not a damned thing I can do about it.

Using that kind of language in law is distructive long term no matter how good the intent is.

And again, for the reasons stated above.

If you kill someone because they cheated on you and it is pre meditated that is no different than killing someone pre meditated because they are gay or Jew or atheist. THE LAWS ARE ALREADY IN PLACE!

You dont get a pass because you have a "cant we all just get allong" attitude. What I am talking about is long term and cuts to the core of what kind of government we want to live under and what kind of laws we want to live under.

This is not sensationalism. Many of the same politically correct people want to put an end  to shows  like South Park. Many of these same pollitically correct people have attacked music like Alice Cooper, Marlyn Manson and rap music.

If you want to put people behind bars for not controling their behaivor and acting out in violence. I AM ALL WITH YOU, but I am not for any law language that promotes the idea or implys in any way that it is the goverment's right to "send a messages" as to what the thoughts in my head should be.

"hate crime" and "hate speech" are nothing but doublespeek lingo out of 1984. Go read it and maybe you'll understand why I am against your good intent. 

The law as it stands before this pollitically correct trend is simple. DONT PHYSICALLY HARM OTHER PEOPLE! That is language a monkey can understand. And doesnt need the word "hate" built into it.

I have the right to hate you and you have the right to hate me and there is no law keeping you or I free from expressing that hate nor should there be. BOTH of us should be mature enough without goverment becoming the playground police like we are little kids.

People are going to like you, or they wont and it shows a complete lack of personal responsibility to demand through goverment force to make someone like you.

It is not your intent, it is the growing long term trend in law language that I find dangerous to everyone's freedom. Again, your good intent is going to eventually bite you in the ass if laws like this continue to be made.

No well intended theist or atheist gets a pass on this issue simply because I think getting along is a good idea. This is about HOW laws are written AND WHO is in the position of writing and interpreting those laws that WE live under. 

 As far as I am concerned, we should be free to express our opinions. Let me alter the objective of what we are talking about slightly...

If we were to say such things as "Bush is a moron" - "I hate the President" - "Our current president should be in international prision" - that's fine and dandy... this allows the person to vent their anger - while harming no one...

now... if someone were to say, "Let's go assassinate the President" - hold the phone - this implies intent. No matter how much a person may hate Bush - I would never expect the government to tolerate allowing such utterances to go unchecked.

Let the bigots and homophobes say what they want - but - the line has been crossed completely when they start saying things to the liking of "Gays should die at our hands".