Victory: Pennsylvania “hate crimes” law struck down by Penn. Supreme Court
18 Comments Published by Ben DuPré July 24th, 2008 in Law, Politics- The Foundation for Moral Law, along with attorney Aaron D. Martin, represented Christian evangelists Michael Marcavage, Mark Diener, Randall and Linda Beckman, Susan Startzell, Arlene Elshinnawy, and Nancy Major (below), who in 2004 were arrested and charged under the “ethnic intimidation” law for evangelizing at a Philadelphia homosexual parade.
Several of the "Philly 11" pictured here challenged the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's "ethnic intimidation" law
Several of the “Philadelphia 11″ sued and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania agreed that the law was unconstitutional and struck it down. On appeal the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in a short per curiam order, agreed with the Commonwealth Court’s opinion and the Christian evangelists’ appellate brief filed by the Foundation.
Judge Roy Moore remarked on this historic case:
“We are very happy that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled in our favor to stop the Governor and a group of corrupt politicians from sneaking a ‘hate crimes’ bill through the Pennsylvania legislature. Preaching to homosexuals about the sin of sodomy should not be made a ‘thought crime’ in Pennsylvania or any other state.”
In the appellate brief filed March 17, 2008, the Foundation and attorney Martin argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that the legislature’s altering of an “agricultural crop destruction” bill into an amendment to the “ethnic intimidation” law—making crimes motivated by “sexual orientation,” “gender identity” and other classes subject to greater punishment (Act No. 2002-143, HB 1493)—violated, among other provisions, Article III, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution:
“No law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill shall be so altered or amended, on its passage through either House, as to change its original purpose.”
The Commonwealth Court agreed that the “ethnic intimidation” amendment violated Section 1 and now so has the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, also said:
“Having been arrested, jailed and charged with a ‘hate crime’ for preaching the Gospel, I am elated that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling in striking down Pennsylvania’s expanded ‘hate crimes’ law. The methods used by the Pennsylvania legislature in passing the ‘hate crimes’ bill were extremely devious and yet another chilling example as to how far politicians are willing to go to silence Christian speech that they would violate our own state Constitution to do it. In a nation that is becoming increasingly hostile toward Biblical Christianity, we remain vigilant as the Pennsylvania legislature will most likely attempt to pass another ‘hate crimes’ bill and are continuing to educate the American people on the significant dangers of such laws.”
Since this was a successful suit challenging the underhanded legislative procedure used to pass the “ethnic intimidation” amendment, Mr. Marcavage is right to call on Pennsylvanians to remain vigilant so that the Pennsylvania legislature does not turn right around and pass such a heinous bill again.
Mr. Marcavage, as you may recall, is still battling in the Massachusetts courts after he was found guilty of “disorderly conduct” for preaching with a megaphone in Salem, Mass., on Halloween night. The Foundation hopes to obtain the same success for Mr. Marcavage in Massachusetts as was gained in Pennsylvania since private beliefs and public preaching of the gospel—whether to homosexuals in Philadelphia or to Halloween revelers in “Witch City”—should never be made a crime.
This is truely saddening.The thought that you oppose treating individuals of amercia equally and fairly is mind boggling!
how dare you support physical and verbal harrasment against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Jesus constantly talked about lLOVING one another and instead you choose to persecute. How can you honestly call yourselves christians?!!!
Do you not remember the insanity of the Puritans?! Its as if youre trying to revert back to that puritan state of stupidity!!! and what two people do in the privacy of their home is none of your business!
I pray that you all see the errors in your false gospels before its too late.
he who is without sin shall cast the first stone….
Thank you Joshua,
this is but a VICTORY for haters of God’s gay children. This is a loss for the state of Pennsyvania.
I call upon the good people of Pennsylvania to stand up and to reject leaving any one vulnerable to hate crimes just because of who they are.
This rejoicing is very much against Christ’s teaching of love one another and do onto others as you would have them do onto you.
Extremists won and good people, state of Pennsylvania and true Christians lost this time.
If you guys take time to watch a video of the event, you’ll see that the gays were the ones getting verbally abusive. They were downright NASTY. Go look it up on YouTube.
Jesus Himself condemned sodomy. Loving your neighbor does NOT mean tolerating the sin!
Homosexuality is perversion. Mr. Marcavage and his group have the GOD-GIVEN RIGHT–not to mention DUTY–to preach against it.
Hate crimes laws are nothing more than laws restricting free speech. We do not need Thought Police, thank you very much!
free speech that includes hARMING people?!
Im sure Jesus would love to know that people are being hurt by these self proclaimed ‘christians’!
Hate crimes bills keep people from being harmed!
this is despicable! Maybe their reaction was justified seeing as now they will be harassed and harmed and there wont be anything they can do about it!
Homosexuality is not a religion. theyre people just as you are. gay rights are not special rights. theyre rights that havent been issued yet due to ignorance and the blatant stupidity of ‘christians’
also, they didnt say the content in the bill was unconstitutional. Rather, the manner in which it was attached to an unrelated bill wasnt right.
Hate speech to bring harm and simply telling someone they are wrong is not hate speech. Hate speech is to bring harm to others but you all make it a crime to say it is wrong bringing a non reality to speech and physical violence.
I am glad to see that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the unconstitutional verdict against the “Philadelphia Eleven”, who were only exercising free speech, even if the Supreme Court ruling was based largely on a technicality.
It is a dark time in our national history when “hate crime” laws are specifically designed to give special honor and privileges to the practice of moral perversion
while outlawing and legally punishing persons using peaceful free speech to uphold Biblical teaching and natural law.
I am glad this bill was struck down. People seem to forget that God himself declares homosexual acts forbidden ,period. In other words this simply means it really does not matter what any human being thinks about this issue, Christian or gay, its been decided already by God. Also i find it ammusing to say the least people scream and hollar that Jesus was about love, and He was, however there is a judgement. Again, it does not matter in the least if you believe it or not. God said it, end of story. for those of you who care, here are the WORDS OF THE LORD, on this subject-LEV.18:22, LEV.20:13,1st TIM 1:8-10 1ST Cor 6 :9-10, Rom 1 :26-28. there are more but im sure you can see God has never favored nor tolerated depraved homosexual acts. GOD declared it an abomination not man. so if you have an issue with it ,blame God, take issue with your maker, you people who claim Jesus is only love are dead wrong. God is love, He is also judge. not his people who faithfully follow and condemn what He Himself condemned.
Why should there be laws to protect people’s feeling? Who will judge what speech is permissible and how? A thought police? Sound very scary to me. In a free society, we should be able to express ourselves even if our speech is unpopular. The government has no business in telling Americans what they can and can not say. It seems that hate laws will do nothing more than to censor people and control unpolitically correct opinions. The same thing is happening right now in Canada with the Human Rights Commissions. These commissions are bring cases against people for such things as making lesbian jokes, criticizing Islam and expressing their Christian ideas about homosexuality. Check out http://www.ezralevant.com or the Human Rights Commission in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVJTHIvqw8. If hate speech laws were to become part of our legal system, it will have a chilling effect on discourse and expression in this country, and threaten the foundation of the 1st Amendment. You might still remember that amendment?
“Why should there be laws to protect people’s feeling? Who will judge what speech is permissible and how? A thought police? Sound very scary to me. In a free society, we should be able to express ourselves even if our speech is unpopular. The government has no business in telling Americans what they can and can not say. It seems that hate laws will do nothing more than to censor people and control unpolitically correct opinions.”
You are SO right JonZ!! I am thankful as a NON believer that I don’t have to live by you’re “laws”. Or listen to you’re words, I simply can turn and walk away. Man’s law is what governs this nation, man’s law cover all people, God’s and non believers.
Isn’t it already against the law to Assault someone?
To injure someone?
To strike, to cause harm?
Of course it is.
Break the law, go to jail. Assault, attempted murder, intent to harm, malicious wounding, etc. The laws are already on the books.
Why do we care if it is a gay person, a black person, a white person, any person? Protecting all equally just means enforcing the law, not trying to be thought police.
crazy.
The shame that fellow Christians feel at the unbridled bigotry and hatred displayed by these 11 people is overshadowed by the sadness we feel in the resultant violence. Shame on you people for calling your self righteous crusade against humanity christian.
I agree with Joshua “This is truely saddening.The thought that you oppose treating individuals of amercia equally and fairly is mind boggling!” This is EXACTLY what liberal America is trying to do to us – they want free speech ONLY if that speech is for corruption, sin and liberal ideas. If you do not agree with them then they want your freedoms revoked and considered “hate crimes”. Are you SERIOUS?
Christianity preaches to HATE the sin but LOVE the sinner. How can you even call Christianity extremism? Our country was founded on Christian beliefs and morals. America has literally fallen to pieces since removing prayer in schools. The gospel should be preached AS IS, because it is the word of God and does not bend to anyone. You can choose to believe it or not, but your non-belief does not make it untrue. This judgement in this case is a great one for this country. Let’s get back to moral living. We Christians have been persecuted for long enough – it’s sickening how twisted things have become. You all claim that we should have rights, well where are the rights of the conservative groups? They are disappearing fast. How about the people that come to Christian gatherings and scream hate at us? I don’t see you knocking down any doors to right that (and in your argument above, wouldn’t that also be considered a hate crime??). Stop being such hypocrites people.
I just feel bad for you Joshua… you call us ignorant and yet you cannot even use correct punctuation and capitalization in your sentences. *sigh*
“:gay rights are not special rights. theyre rights that havent been issued yet due to ignorance and the blatant stupidity of ‘christians’”
God grant me the serenity to deal with those who are so ignorant and hypocritical. Who claim things that are simply untrue.
Good.
Speaking of hate crime(s):
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
The FBI knows what Bush did.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
(Something considerable: I don’t quite remember where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent phrase, and please let me share it—it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memory so it never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—actually—off of the top of my head, I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.)
First I fail to see what George Bush has to do with this particular case. Second regardless of your beliefs or lack of, any law that makes it a crime to think and speak freely should scare every American. Actions can be criminal, but when thought becomes criminal we are in trouble. What is next, are you going to jail someone because you think they want to kill their neighbor? Where does it end? Come on people wake up! Think about the consequences of our actions not just the well meaning (if not misguided) intentions.