Linda Harvey: How About a Federal “Nice Crimes” Law?

From How About a Federal “Nice Crimes” Law?, by Linda Harvey, published Nov 29, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

Now that the left has ascended to power in Washington, San Fran Nan and her munchkins have declared that adding “sexual orientation” to existing federal “hate crimes” law will rise to the top of the congressional priority list.

But wait. Why not first pass a “nice crimes” law, at the federal level and also in some states?

After all, selecting some crimes for special designation as markers of “hate” is helpful, but only if we first recognize other “non-hate” crimes as the nice ones.

For instance, I would nominate all nice murders, where the offender expresses tender sentiments toward the victim before bludgeoning him/her to death. There’s also the nice, reasonable spouse abuse crimes, where a husband was set off because he had a bad day, or because his woman looked twice at another man. His self-esteem was low and he had a good reason. Outside the orange jumpsuits, these are really great guys.

Of course, the ACLU will help us here, because they are the perpetual defenders of “nice” people who perform nice crimes, like sodomy (back when it was a crime) or pedophilia. Remember the 1997 case in Massachusetts of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley, who was the victim of a grotesque sexual molestation and murder by two men. The ACLU defended the pedophile group NAMBLA in a subsequent suit. Sex, after all, is a nice thing, and people have their needs. Perhaps it shouldn’t go as far as murder, especially of 10-year-olds, but I’m sure the ACLU can help us understand how to think about this.

The ACLU also defends the nice crime of obscenity distribution, which benefits us all by providing images of group sex involving 13- and 14-year-olds, animals and so on. The freedom to view such material develops the highest and noblest of character traits in our citizenry.

A judge in Asheville, N.C., recently sentenced child porn producer Andrew Douglas Reed to a mere 10-month sentence, in recognition of the “nice” nature of his crime. Some of the pornography involved kids as young as 6 engaging in sex acts with adults or other children. Let’s hear it for all the local folks who spoke up on Reed’s behalf, especially the fellow members of his “welcoming” Unitarian Universalist congregation. We should especially thank the lenient judge, a Democrat, who recognized right off that this was really a nice man performing a nice crime who didn’t deserve 80-some years in jail. The kids involved will surely recover, someday.

I don’t know that rape would fit into the nice crime category, except in those cases where the rapist keeps a memento from his victim – a lock of hair or an article of clothing. This signifies respect and affection, don’t you think? Then that could be “nice.” Interviews with rape victims might shed some light.

Another nice crime is when a Muslim or well-informed college student marches in a parade or a demonstration in the U.S., and because of our free speech laws is able to call for the extermination of the nation of Israel, or of Jews, or of all infidels in general, or even “death to America.” Oh, wait, that’s not a crime, unless we still – (yawn) – punish people for sedition or treason.

But if it were, it would be a nice one, because America, Israel, Christians and all other nations and faiths are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened to Muslims. This would make a great teaching example for FBI and law enforcement “hate crimes” training funded by the Department of Justice. It would illustrate how an officer can identify what are appropriate thoughts (those that have good reasons behind them, like anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-American opinions) vs. those that are bad and evil, like believing that homosexuality or Islamofascism are wrong. Those opinions are “hateful,” according to the important people who decide these things.

Local police officers, based on the federal 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act, are required to conduct interviews when a crime is committed against a homosexual to find out “why” the offender committed the crime. Victims who are window-washers, stamp collectors, vegans or blues musicians wouldn’t get this courtesy even if the actual crime is the same, say, an act of theft. But a homosexual does. If the offender has a negative (“homophobic”) opinion, or if he/she added a homosexual insult to the injury, that crime becomes a statistic, counted as part of a miniscule-but-predicted-to-grow “epidemic” of “hate” crimes against homosexuals.

Most of these are non-violent crimes like intimidation or vandalism, but they surely signal a Threat From The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Take the 1998 murder of homosexual Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. Even though it seemed to be a drug deal gone bad, Katie Couric quickly blamed the “hate” of Christians, particularly Focus on the Family. With such special insight, one wonders why she didn’t point to Martin Luther, the Apostle Paul and maybe even the Gaither Brothers as well.

Such crimes need to be carefully tracked, the offenders and all their allies or potential allies interrogated, with extra penalties for even daring to commit a crime while holding, or seeming to hold, the wrong beliefs. To stop at simply punishing the crime would be, well, insensitive to “hate.” How much better for everyone, even the victim, if one is robbed or murdered while nice views are held by the felon.

The categories of “hate” in that 1990 statistics law enabled the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program of the No Child Left Behind Act to set aside millions of dollars for “anti-bias” and “safe schools” lessons for school children about what were now called hate crimes. Pleas from pro-family leaders were ignored, and it’s a good thing. Many of these programs, unbeknownst to parents, tell children that having the wrong opinion about homosexuality is just as bad as hating people because of skin color. Negative opinions about homosexuality apparently lead to violence, or at least this is the theory that will be proven just as soon as that “epidemic” of hate crimes unfolds.

In the meantime, such opinions in the young must be quickly corrected. Federal and state education departments fund such lessons now, even though there’s not yet a federal hate crimes law involving sexual orientation with penalties in place.

Incorrect opinions about religion – especially those favorable to Christianity or Judaism – are also dangerous. It’s amazing how this view seems to go hand in hand with acceptance of “gay” lifestyles. But it’s good that those in charge of nice opinions monitor all these things together.

Thanks to that 1990 statistics law, we know the correct definition of a “hate” crime, as opposed to all those “nice” crimes out there. And I’m sure the new Democrat majority, backed up by their trial lawyer friends, will help us with further categories, labels and stereotypes, so we know what “nice” beliefs to hold.

Or else.