17025: Leprechauns Unite!

 

This campaign advocating for The Leprechaun Law—hatched by White advertising agencies in Ireland, Dublin, and Milan—seeks to generate awareness for Ireland’s outdated hate speech laws. The concept is explained as follows:

 

Irish citizens are being encouraged to identify as leprechauns in order to enjoy better legal protection from online abuse. ‘The Leprechaun Law’ is a satirical campaign by LADbible Ireland with Folk VML Dublin and VML Milan that aims to expose Ireland’s outdated hate speech laws, which pre-date the internet and leave citizens vulnerable to trolling and online abuse.

 

While it sounds like a gimmick, the campaign is rooted in legal reality. Under the EU Habitats Directive (2009) leprechauns are classified as ‘protected species’ in Ireland’s Sliabh Foy Loop area, unlike normal Irish citizens.

 

Social publisher LADBible (with 5 million followers) is now calling on Irish citizens to adopt leprechaun status in protest. The public is being asked to symbolically convert to a leprechaun online or via a pop-up law booth in Dublin — and then share their new ‘leprechaun status’ through a fun TikTok campaign that creates a leprechaun version of the user.

 

The goal of the initiative is to push for legislation change on hate laws in Ireland, as well as requesting a public consultation as part of any new legislation updates.

 

If the true goal is pushing for legal revisions to hate laws, hate to say it, but this campaign will fail. It might have inspired greater awareness via a promotional tie-in with Lucky Charms.

 

Although expect for leprechauns to join other White segments—led by White women, White menopausal women, Old White Guys, White neurodivergent, White conservatives, et al.—claiming victimhood and seizing DEIBA+ status in Adland.

7281: No Hate For Hate Crimes…?

From PoliticsDaily.com…

Hate Crimes Spike: Religion, Race, Sexual Orientation Are Main Targets

By David Gibson

Conservative religious leaders were some of the sharpest opponents of the federal legislation passed in October that expanded federal hate crimes law to include protections for homosexuals.

But during the debate, none of them raised the idea of revoking the existing protections for religious victims under the law. And it seems unlikely that even those few religious leaders who think hate crimes laws are unnecessary would want to raise the subject now in light of new statistics showing attacks based on the religion of the victim rose nearly 9 percent in 2008 over the previous year. That is the highest jump across all major categories, according to FBI hate crime statistics released Monday.

Following close behind religiously motivated hate crimes were racially motivated attacks against African-American targets, which rose more that 8 percent in 2008 -- the year that saw the first African-American in history secure a major party nomination, and then win the general election to become the first black president. The rise in anti-black crimes—from 2,658 in 2007 to 2,876 in 2008—contrasts with a decline in attacks against whites, from 749 in 2007 down to 716 in 2008.

As has been the case for several years, racially motivated attacks account for about half of all bias crimes (51.3 percent) and religiously motivated attacks were next at 19.5 percent, followed by crimes linked to sexual orientation, at 16.7 percent of all attacks. The FBI said 11.5 percent of hate crimes (894) were motivated by ethnicity or national origin, with about two-thirds of those against Hispanic targets. That overall number was down significantly from 2007, when 1,007 such crimes were investigated.

Overall, hate crimes rose to their highest levels since 2001, when a spike in anti-Islamic incidents following the 9/11 attacks pushed the annual total over 9,000. For 2008, the total number of bias crimes was 7,783, a two percent rise from 2007. Most offenses (5,542) were classified as crimes against persons; acts of “intimidation,” such as harassment, accounted for 48.8 percent of crimes against persons, simple assaults for 32.1 percent, and aggravated assaults for 18.5 percent. There were seven murders. The rest of the incidents were classified as “offenses against property,” such as arson and vandalism.

The number of incidents based on sexual orientation increased slightly in 2008, but the number of lesbian, gay or transgender victims (each incident can have more than one victim) rose by 11 percent, the third consecutive year that figure has risen.

”We have to prosecute each hate crime to the fullest extent of the law, but we also need to get at the roots,” said Joe Solmonese, head of Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights advocacy group. “When we don’t know each other as human beings, ignorance breeds misunderstanding, which breeds hate, which too often this year led to violence. We have to keep fighting the prejudices and stereotypes that underlie these acts.”

The breakdown in religiously motivated crimes shows several interesting trends—though the consistent reality is that Jews and Jewish institutions continue to account for two-thirds of religiously motivated attacks, even though Jews account for less than 2 percent of the U.S. population.

”Hate violence in America is a serious national problem that shows little sign of slowing,” Robert G. Sugarman, national chair of the Anti-Defamation league, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director, said in a joint statement. “While the increase in the number of hate crimes may be partially attributed to improved reporting, the fact that these numbers remain elevated—particularly the significant rise in the number of victims selected on the basis of religion or sexual orientation—should be of concern to every American.”

Interestingly, incidents classified as “anti-Islamic” dropped slightly, from 115 in 2007 to 105 in 2008. That is down from nearly 600 attacks in 2001, the bulk of those in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

But bias crimes against the general category of “other religions” jumped last year from 130 to 191. Those other religions would include Sikhs and Hindus, for example, groups that are becoming increasingly prominent in American society.

Crimes against Catholics or Catholic targets also jumped, from 61 to 75 in 2008. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told USA Today the increase could be tied to the church’s increasingly vocal role in debates on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

”Unfortunately it spills over into violence,” Donohue said, adding that he thinks it’s going to get worse. “I’ve never seen our country so culturally divided and so polarized … These issues are not going away.”

The number and breadth of incidents could rise after next year since the hate crimes law that President Obama signed last month—the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act—requires local authorities to track bias crimes more closely and provides federal resources to investigate those crimes.

In the 2008 survey, more law enforcement agencies than ever (13,690) provided data, but just 15 percent of them reported a bias crime and nearly 85 percent reported no hate crimes in their jurisdictions. More than 4,000 agencies did not participate, though that number is likely to decline in the wake of the new federal law requiring greater compliance.

7177: Hating Hate-Crime Laws.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Hate-crime laws pervert justice

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama plans to sign soon, is named for two men who were murdered in 1998. Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten to death in Wyoming. Byrd, a black hitchhiker, was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas. Bigotry seemed to play a role in both crimes.

Here’s something else Shepard and Byrd have in common: Their killers were arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison or death, all without the benefit of hate-crime laws, state or federal. Hence, it’s very strange to slap their names onto a piece of legislation based on the premise that such crimes might go unpunished without a federal law aimed at bias-motivated violence.

In more than a decade of lobbying for this law, its supporters have never shown that state officials are letting people get away with murder, or lesser crimes of violence, when the victims belong to historically oppressed groups. Instead, they have presented the legislation as a litmus test of antipathy toward violent bigots and sympathy for their victims.

Given this framing, it’s surprising the law’s opponents managed to resist it for so long, when all they had on their side was the Constitution and basic principles of justice.

As the Supreme Court has noted, the federal government has no general authority to fight crime. Yet, this law covers any violent crime where the victim is selected “because of” his actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, as long as the crime in any way involves or “affects” interstate commerce, even if the connection is limited to a weapon made in another state or country.

Like state laws that enhance penalties for crimes when they are motivated by bigotry, the federal law requires courts to examine defendants’ beliefs. To prove that a defendant selected his victim based on one of the prohibited criteria, prosecutors inevitably will cite things he said at the time of the crime and other evidence of his hatred toward members of the victim’s group.

If someone hits me in California with a baseball bat made in Kentucky, that is not a federal crime. But if he does exactly the same thing while calling me a “dirty kike,” it is. No doubt the prosecutor also would deem it relevant that my attacker owned a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf and belonged to a neo-Nazi group.

Consider the impact of federalizing this crime. In California, the maximum sentence for assault with a deadly weapon is four years. The state’s hate-crime statute could extend that sentence by up to three years, for a total of seven.

By contrast, the maximum sentence under the new federal law is 10 years. Hence my assailant could serve more time for his anti-Semitism than he does for his violence.

Imagine that my attacker is acquitted in state court because the jury accepts his self-defense claim. Or suppose he is convicted and gets a one-year sentence. He can still be prosecuted in federal court.

The law allows a do-over if the Justice Department decides “the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to state charges left demonstratively unvindicated the federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence.”

The idea, as then-Attorney General Janet Reno explained when the law was first proposed, is to “give people the opportunity to have a forum in which justice can be done if it is not done in the state court.”

Although such serial prosecutions are permitted under the doctrine of “dual sovereignty,” they look an awful lot like double jeopardy, which is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) nevertheless claims the federal hate-crime law upholds “the ideals of our Founding Fathers,” who evidently were big on punishing people for their beliefs, retrying defendants after they’re acquitted and letting Congress make a federal case out of anything that attracts its attention.

6723: The Rain Check Is In The Mail.

Grilling the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• KFC is still reeling from mobs seeking free grilled chicken, thanks to downloadable coupons that were available on Oprah’s website. The fast feeder is mailing rain checks to customers denied the freebies when restaurants ran out of chicken. KFC needs to unthink its marketing promotions.

• Maryland became the first state to protect the homeless under hate-crime laws. Violent acts against homeless people have become more common, according to advocacy groups. The economy isn’t helping matters, as more Americans might find themselves struggling with poverty and homelessness. But hey, they can get rain checks for free grilled chicken at KFC.

• Toyota reported 1Q losses at $7.7 billion, creating its worst fiscal year since being founded in 1937. Oh, what a feeling.

• General Motors’ latest restructuring plan calls for more cars to be built overseas. Nice. Taxpayers will provide bailout money to a company that proposes moving jobs to other countries. Oh, what a feeling.

6060: Revisiting Hate-Crimes Law.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Expand hate-crimes law to cover transgender people

By Rick Garcia

Ten years ago this month, America felt the shock of the brutal murder of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. He was tragically beaten to death because he was gay. I remember how frightening it was for gay people who didn’t live in places like San Francisco’s Castro District, Chicago’s Lake View or New York’s Village. Gay people in Illinois saw Shepard’s murder and wondered just how different Illinois and Wyoming were.

Gay and transgender people who live in Albion or Arcola, Red Bud or Roodhouse, Cave in the Rock or Carlinville and yes, even those who live in Chicago’s West, Northwest and South sides feared that what happened to a young gay man in Laramie, Wyoming, could happen to them right here in Illinois.

In the decade since Shepard’s death, we have seen more people killed simply because of who they were as persons -- they were gay, lesbian or did not fit traditional gender stereotypes.

This February, a 15-year-old boy in Oxnard, Calif., Larry King, told some of his classmates that he had a Valentine’s Day crush: another boy in their class. Less than 24 hours later, the boy Larry had a crush on had found out about the crush, brought a gun to school, and shot Larry in the back of the head because he was gay.

This summer, 18-year-old Angie Zapata went out on a date with a man in her Colorado hometown. Her date ended up beating her to death with a fire extinguisher, just because she was a transgender woman. And Illinois is not exempt.

As the public policy director for Equality Illinois, the statewide organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, I’ve seen these hate crimes and have been fighting on the front lines against these hate crimes.

Illinois does have one of the strongest hate crime statutes in the country, and we are proud of that, but more needs to be done.

Illinois’ Legislature included sexual orientation in our state’s hate crimes law, but not gender identity. Some of the most brutal and vicious attacks here have been against transgender individuals -- those who may not fit traditional gender stereotypes.

There’s overwhelming public support for gay and transgender-inclusive hate crimes laws, as shown by Gallup polling. Unfortunately, as shown by the news, gay and transgender folks here in Illinois and across the country are too often the victim of brutal hate crimes.

As we sit here 10 years after Shepard’s murder, we must do what we can to honor his legacy, to do all we can to ensure that a tragedy like this does not happen again, and never happens in our state.

We need comprehensive federal hate crimes legislation. Sen. John McCain must drop his opposition to such legislation, and Sen. Barack Obama should reaffirm his commitment to passing and implementing strong federal hate crimes legislation. And our Illinois hate crimes law must be amended to include gender identity.

We have a moral obligation to send a strong message that violence directed against anyone simply because of who they are or what they believe is never acceptable and the full weight of our law will enforce that message.

Essay 4711

From The Chicago Tribune…

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Focus on hate crime is far too narrow

By Clarence Page

WASHINGTON—Here’s one from the “Taste of His Own Medicine” department: When the Rev. Al Sharpton led a recent Washington rally to protest what he called lax federal prosecution of hate crimes, at least one local black resident was waiting with a protest of his own.

Amid recent reports of noose hangings and other racial incidents, Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and other activists rallied outside the Department of Justice Friday to call for tougher federal prosecutions of hate crimes.

Shane Johnson, 32, a social worker by day and Weblogger on the side, staged a nearby dissent with a few sympathizers. He supported the prosecution of hate crimes, he said, but thinks Sharpton’s definition of “hate” is too narrow. Johnson didn’t draw much attention and he wasn’t surprised. “Most people view me as taking on the black establishment,” he told me in a telephone interview. “They think I am going to embarrass our leaders. My view is that they should be embarrassed.”

Maybe they should. I share Johnson’s outrage. Why, I often have wondered, do we black folks get so much more agitated about white-on-black insults than the black-on-black assaults that constantly terrorize certain neighborhoods?

Johnson is part of a new “netroots” movement of black-oriented Web sites that has created a virtual civil rights movement. Aided by black talk-radio hosts, they stirred the national protests that led to a march that the mainstream media could not ignore in Jena, La. That’s the town where six black youths were charged with the beating of a white youth. The hanging of nooses in a schoolyard tree provoked a series of nasty racial episodes.

Sharpton wants tough federal prosecution of hate-related crimes, like the hanging of nooses. Fine, says Johnson. But Johnson also asks why national black leaders have paid so little attention to a more recent campaign in the black netroots: the beating and rape of a 35-year-old Haitian woman and the beating and sexual assault of her 12-year-old son by up to 10 assailants in West Palm Beach, Fla.

In June, armed attackers broke into her apartment in Dunbar Village, a public housing development, allegedly to retaliate for the woman's complaints about their noise and litter. They repeatedly raped and sodomized her and forced her to perform oral sex on her son, according to a grand jury indictment. They also poured household chemicals on the woman’s eyes and threatened to set the two victims on fire, according to police and news reports.

Was that a “hate” crime? It certainly wasn’t about love.

“Why is it that we can make bold statements of outrage about a few nooses,” Johnson said. “But not about this 35-year-old woman who is trying to make a life for herself and her son in Florida?”

Why, indeed? State and federal hate-crime laws are not written to include such traditional varieties of hate-filled violence. The term “hate crime,” coined in the 1980s, usually describes crimes clearly motivated by racism, anti-Semitism and other biases against racial or ethnic minorities. Johnson decided to take a public stand for the inclusion of hate-filled violence against women, although he didn’t expect many to stand with him—at least not in public.

Instead, civil rights leaders and those of us whom they purport to represent often seem to be too benumbed by black-inflicted terrors that we have given up trying to fight. As another mother at Dunbar Village told an Associated Press reporter: “So a lady was raped? Big deal. There’s too much other crime happening here.”

Sadly, those who seek deliverance from such horrors are increasingly isolated from those who might best be equipped to offer hope. That message comes through loud and clear in a new Pew Charitable Trust poll of American attitudes about race. Sixty-one percent of the black Americans surveyed said values between poor and middle-class blacks are moving too far apart to be viewed as their having a common black experience. Only 41 percent expressed that view in a similar 1986 poll.

Differing values are a natural consequence of America’s growing class divide. Yet that divide comes across more dramatically in black America, where poverty is more concentrated and a colorful “gangsta” hip-hop culture receives widespread and highly lucrative promotion by major entertainment media.

That gangsta culture punishes those who don’t “stop snitching,” to quote a popular inner-city T-shirt slogan, even when the victims are innocent neighbors. A lot of us black Americans would like to take back our streets. We could use a little more help from our leaders.

Essay 4431

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

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‘Hate’ crime – it’s not black or white but gray

People feel that the law’s application is hit and miss

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist

If a white person spray paints a black person’s home with racist graffiti, that person will likely be charged with a hate crime.

However, if a black person assaults a white person, more than likely the hate crime law won’t come into play. That has led to the perception that prosecutors are reluctant to charge blacks with a crime that is ordinarily committed against them, rather than by them.

So when black teens are accused of assaulting a white person and police deem the crime “random violence,” for many whites there is a nagging perception that the system is biased against white victims.

What we really have is a tepid law that can’t help but set us up for disappointment.

In fact, the biggest problem with any hate crime law -- including the move to expand our national Hate Crime Law -- is that one can never really know what’s in another person’s heart.

We can, and we do, assume a lot of things.

But unless there is hard evidence that a criminal attacked a person because of his or her gender, race, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, it is not likely that a cross-racial crime -- no matter how heinous -- is going to be charged as a hate crime.

No line on motives
According to the City of Chicago’s Human Relations Commission, 80 hate crimes were reported in the city in 2006. Thus far in 2007, 50 hate crimes have been reported. Since the Cook County state’s attorney’s office has to compile records from various sources -- a feat, I’m told, that could take days -- it is unclear how many hate crimes actually have been prosecuted.

The only hate-crime incident I found reported locally was one about the burglary of a North Side Jewish temple in June. That temple was previously vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti. Also in June, a man filed a federal lawsuit claiming Chicago Police officers allegedly beat him because he is gay.

Although well-intended, the hate crime law fails to give us a view into the motives of the most heinous crimes, and thus fails to satisfy our desire to put hatemongers in a class by themselves.

When a person spray paints swastikas on a synagogue, or puts a burning cross in front of a black church, it rattles our collective civility. But many of us are appalled by cross-racial assaults like the one that occurred in the Beverly neighborhood last summer when 14-year-old Ryan Rusch was beaten by three African Americans.

Prosecutors argued at the time that designating the assault as a “hate crime” would not have enhanced the penalty, since the assailants had been charged with attempted murder.

While a hate crime charge automatically bumps a misdemeanor to a felony, charging someone with a hate crime who is already charged with a felony does not necessarily enhance the punishment.

For instance, one of the Rusch attackers, Micha Eatman, was acquitted on attempted murder, but convicted on charges of aggravated battery and robbery. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. Conviction of a first offense for a hate crime law carries a one- to three-year prison term.

Did ‘hate’ factor in Doan's death?
Still, charging this particular crime as a hate crime would have sent a strong message to other teens who think preying on white victims is some kind of joke.

The state’s attorney’s office is still investigating the July melee in Durkin Park that left one teen severely injured. Charges against a 15-year-old black teen who drove a car into a predominantly white and Hispanic crowd during that incident have also not been filed.

The controversial hate crime law came up again last week when the killing of Du Doan, a 62-year-old Asian fisherman, appeared to be a hate crime.

Doan was shoved into Montrose Harbor while he was fishing from the pier.

John J. Haley, 31, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in Doan’s death. Apparently, Haley had threatened another man, described as being Asian, earlier that same night. He also has been charged with pushing another fisherman into the lake on July 31. That man survived.

Although it was initially reported that all of the people victimized by Haley were Asian, an anonymous caller told me that the man who was catapulted into the harbor in the earlier incident was not Asian, but a white male.

That, of course, is little comfort to Du Doan’s widow and family.

Essay 4335

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

---------------------------------------

The expanded law is vitally needed to curb hate crimes

By Rummana Hussain

The two men eyed the slight, gay university student as he entered the eatery with a female friend.

“Hey faggot!” a voice beckoned toward Brett Timmerman. “Why don’t you take your faggot ass back to Madison?”

Before he knew it, Timmerman’s tormentors greeted him with a slap, gobs of spit and a swift blow to the head as he was tackled to the ground, according to a lawsuit he filed against his attackers.

Timmerman is waiting to testify about the vicious 2005 attack that ruptured his ear drum. While his physical wounds have mended, the Wisconsin man’s psychological scars linger -- just as they do for a black mother of two who heard chants of “Burn mother - - - - - -, burn!” outside her Philadelphia house before discovering racial slurs and fake blood splashed across her steps.

Like other hate crime targets, Timmerman still has nightmares.

Based on FBI statistics, a hate crime is committed once every hour in this country. One out of six of those victims are targeted because they are gay, according to an attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. These statistics don’t capture all attacks because victims are often too embarrassed and too afraid to speak out. The data also doesn’t track attacks on transgendered people.

Attacks against homosexuals have remained consistent for several years. Gay rights activists say they have no reason to believe attacks against homosexuals are on the rise, but brutal attacks such as the 1998 torture and slaying of Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence and left for dead in Laramie, Wyo., are a reminder of just how savage hatemongers can be.

That’s why the passage of a pending Senate bill, aptly named after Shepard, is considered vital to curb hate crimes and the overall violence that has pervaded our society.

The proposed act simply extends the existing federal hate crimes law -- which now levies additional punishment in cases of violence when race and ethnicity is a prime motivator for the attacks -- to protect homosexuals and the transgendered.

Proponents of the act say the new protections would not legitimize gay lifestyles or keep anyone from using homophobic slurs -- as long as violence is not involved. The few religious leaders and right-wing leaders worried that it would prevent them from spouting their anti-gay rhetoric should stop misleading their flocks, say gay activists.

“They’ve been preaching that [anti-gay rhetoric] since the dawn of day,” said Laura Velazquez, anti-violence project manager for the Center on Halsted. “We’re not trying to stop that. What we’re trying to emphasize is a need to prevent any type of hate crime or violence.”

Timmerman’s attorney Jim Madigan, of Chicago’s Lambda Legal, believes having expanded protections for gays would have brought some relief to his client: “It’ll certainly make those who target certain people think twice.”

Essay 4334

From the Chicago Sun-Times…

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Ministers fear law would muzzle religious speech

By Deborah Douglas

Gays are going to hell – that’s what some ministers have been preaching and want to keep on preaching. But a proposed hate crimes law would stop them from saying so -- at least that’s what several believe so firmly that they took out an ad in USA Today to warn churchgoers that the law would curb their religious speech.

Arch-conservative ministers complain that their denunciation of homosexuality is mischaracterized by gay-rights activists as hate speech.

But if religious speech is construed as hate speech under the terms of this proposed law -- the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 -- ministers may be thwarted, says Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.

That’s why Jackson and more than 30 other black ministers around the country signed a full-page ad that ran July 11 in USA Today protesting the hate crimes bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3, awaiting discussion by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Jackson says if parishioners commit a hate crime upon hearing their minister's admonitions, those ministers could be held liable.

“They are taking loopholes in the legislation that would create the opportunity to muzzle the church, the pulpit,” Jackson says. “It’s landmark legislation: For the first time sexual orientation is raised to an equal status with race or creed in American law. I don’t think somebody else’s lifestyle preference should be made equal to my struggle as a black man. [But] my primary argument with this bill is religious liberty.”

Both versions of the House and Senate bills provide federal money, up to $100,000 a year, to help local police solve hate crimes when they’ve exhausted local resources and expertise. Each version covers not only people attacked based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender and disability. The proposed law specifically says it cannot usurp constitutional law -- like the kind that guarantees free speech.

But Jackson says additional protections are not needed. He worries that such legislation gags the church’s position on homosexuality.

Not all religious folks agree.

The Rev. Mel White, 67, a gay minister and the author of Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, called Jackson disingenuous: “At the heart of this imaginary complaint is the fundamentalist Christians’ belief that … God will remove his hand of blessing from this country” if homosexuals are protected. Under that belief, he says, “America is doomed.”

Mainstream black religious leaders don’t necessarily see the law as a threat to their ministries. The Rev. James Meeks, a state senator and pastor of Salem Baptist Church, says: “Ministers will still have the full right to be able to share the Scriptures as they interpret it. They always have, and they always will.”

But is that speech hateful?

“They can say it, and I can say they are wrong,” White says. “That is what America is about.”