Saturday, November 17, 2007
A HOLLOW VICTORY
A reader sent in a WorldNetDaily story:
A court has struck down Pennsylvania's version of a "hate crimes" law, ruling that what officials there call an "Ethnic Intimidation Law" restriction was "unconstitutional and therefore null and void."
"Praise the Lord," said Michael Marcavage, chief of Repent America, a Christian organization. He was one of nearly a dozen people, who became known as the Philadelphia 11, arrested under the law and charged while ministering in 2004 at a publicly funded homosexual event called "OutFest."
Although the Christians who had been giving their testimony on public property later had their charges dismissed, they had been threatened with up to five decades in jail.
They then challenged the law itself, suing over its adoption, and the 4-1 decision in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court said the amendments enacted in 2002 were unconstitutional.
Continue reading...
While it sounds like a victory for Christianity, the law was struck down on what amounts to almost a technicality. The law began as an agricultural law and was amended to include protection for gays against hate speech. That violated Pennsylvania law according to the judges who opined:
"The legislative process that led to the enactment of these amendments clearly violated Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution," said Aaron Martin, attorney for Repent America. "The court rightly found that there was no logical or legal connection between trampling down a hay field and assaulting someone on the basis of sexual orientation."
That is less a victory than a stay of execution.
