S.909 Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Here is a follow up to a story we did last week called Senate Passes Matthew Shepard Act. The Matthew Shepard Act extends extant U.S. federal hate-crime law by extending its scope towards bodily crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, in addition to the current provisions of bodily crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, and national origin.

The following is a story from the The Daily Mail about a Grandmother in the U.K. who has been accused of a hate crime after she objected to a gay march.

After witnessing a gay pride march, committed Christian Pauline Howe wrote to the council to complain that the event had been allowed to go ahead.

But instead of a simple acknowledgement, she received a letter warning her she might be guilty of a hate crime and that the matter had been passed to police.

Two officers later turned up at the frightened grandmother’s home and lectured her about her choice of words before telling her she would not be prosecuted.

Mrs Howe, 67, whose husband Peter is understood to be a Baptist minister, yesterday spoke of her shock at the visit and accused police of ‘ wasting resources’ on her case rather than fighting crime.

‘I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before so I was stunned to have two police officers knocking at my door,’ she said.

‘Their presence in my home made me feel threatened. It was a very unpleasant experience.

‘The officers told me that my letter was thought to be an intention of hate but I was expressing views as a Christian.’

Mrs Howe’s case has been taken up by the Christian Institute, which is looking into potential breaches of freedom of speech and religious rights under the Human Rights Act, either by Norwich City Council or Norfolk Police.

And homosexual equality pressure group Stonewall has branded the authorities’ response ‘ disproportionate’.

Mrs Howe claims she was ‘verbally abused’ while distributing ‘Christian leaflets’ at the march in the centre of Norwich in July. She said someone ‘whispered something in my ear and disappeared’. She fired off a letter to the council describing the march as a ‘public display of indecency’ that was ‘offensive to God’.

She wrote: ‘It is shameful that this small but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals.’

The letter went on to describe homosexuals as ’sodomites’, said homosexuality had ‘contributed to the downfall of every empire’ and added that ‘gay sex was a major cause of sexually transmitted infections’.

Please read the entire article here:
Grandmother who objected to gay march is accused of hate crime

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