Oh wait—this is the United Kingdom, not the U.S. Maybe this is a “crime” in the U.K.
It is completely different. Great Britain doesn’t have nearly the same level of free speech protections that we do and “hate crimes” there include hateful speech.
In the United States, the hate crimes bill covers religion, race, gender, military service, sexual orientation, and a few other things and can only be used to prosecute someone if he or she, “willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person—”
The new hate crimes law law specifically says it can’t be used to limit freedom of speech or religious beliefs. People that say otherwise are too lazy to read the bill. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s909/text
The old hate crimes law was passed in 1994 and protected Christians, women, etc. It was called the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). So, as Christians, we’ve been covered by hate crimes for a long time and you haven’t seen people who oppose us thrown in jail. It’s just utter stupidity. To compare us to countries that don’t have freedom of speech in their Constitution (everyone just assumes that since they are free, western nations, freedom of speech exists; it doesn’t. America is different in the level of emphasis we put on it in our highest law).
And I’ve said before, it’s a stupid, pointless bill. If you assault someone, or you commit murder, adding a “hate crime” to it is symbolic. It’s just another waste of time when there are far more important things to be worrying about - like the $1.4 trillion deficit and the union card check legislation that needs to be destroyed. But to believe that it could be used to suppress religious beliefs or speech shows a complete and total lack of understanding in the nation’s legal system as well as an inability to read the law itself. It’s crystal clear that it only applies if you go out and blow some cross dresser’s head off or you stab some young gay kid. If you did those things, you were going to jail anyway (hence: pointless law).