France has recently passed a new law making homophobic remarks hate crimes with hefty fines and jail sentences. The country already has a law banning hate speech against minorities, but with this recent addition, both anti-gay and anti-female remarks are covered. Anti-gay or sexist remarks can now net up to $60,000 in fines or a year in jail. The motivation for this legislation is that during the past year, anti-gay acts committed against persons doubled within the country. Thus the idea is that with such penalties, thugs would think twice about knocking someone up because he or she was gay.
This has, of course, provoked a lot of reactions. Those who are for it, notably the gay rights groups, say that it is about time that homophobia was placed on the same level as racism. They argue that it ensured equal treatment under the law for a minority group which heretofore was not covered.
On the other hand, many are speaking out against this law, claiming that it will stifle freedom of speech. One of the major dissatisfied parties is the Catholic Church, which worries that it will no longer be able to speak honestly on homosexuality in general and the gay marriage debate.
Perhaps more interesting, though, is the nature which different gay groups are going to work with this new law. Inter-LGBT, which appears to be a GLBT umbrella group, says that it will act only upon flagrant violations of the law. However, SOS Homophobie, a more radical group, is claiming that by simply stating that homosexuality is abnormal, the law is being violated.
This latter position worries me, and is probably a good way to understand why hate crimes legislation, abroad and in the US, is such a controversial topic. In the instance of the Matthew Shepard case, the cruel and unusual punishment he received was surely motivated by anti-gay bias. Unless statements are made that such behavior is unacceptable in civilized societies, one can only assume such incidents will continue. Thus, just as lynchings no longer (or very rarely) occur, the law ought to say that gays can not be singled out and subject to violence without severe penalties.
However, if somebody believes that homosexuality is abnormal, but commits no violence against gays, I am hard pressed to believe a crime has been committed. I may believe that women are not as smart as men, and although that may be deemed a stupid or narrow-minded view, it is not illegal. I am free to say this to women (though I would have to be prepared for a punch or slap in return,) or write about on my website. Similarly, those who believe that homosexuality is abnormal should be afforded the right to their beliefs. Again, if such an individual seeks to cure abnormal homosexuals by bashing them in the skull with a baseball bat, he should be punished.
There is a big difference between words and actions. Though words can lead to actions, this is not by any means the rule. The scary part of this law is the chilling effect it will cast upon day to day life. Are comedians no longer allowed to do routines that poke fun at homosexual behavior? What about TV evangelists who offer salvation from the sickness? Though we may disagree with the message, banning the message will not change the messenger.
The real problem here is that there are people who hate gays just because of their sexuality and seek to hurt them. Will this law mean anything to those who feel this way? Probably not. Will this law anger those who are sympathetic to gays by imposing yet another level of curtailment on their freedom of expression? Surely. It seems that in the shortsighted strategy of ridding the world of yucky people who are hateful, this law might just be putting gays in a more difficult position. The chilling effect will reach those who want to honestly debate and discuss issues such as homosexuality and gay marriage; moderate voices will fall silent while the radical ones on both sides will become ever louder.
What do you think about this ban?
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it’s a fine line. i think that if someone believes in a faith that condemns homosexuality, it is their choice to believe that, and they should be able to express that belief. i do not believe that such a person should be allowed to single out a lesbian and verbally attack her simply for her homosexuality. i think free speech is important and i don’t think it’s ok to stamp out certain types of speech altogether. if i want to say i believe that whites are superior to blacks, i should be able to say that. (note: i do not actually believe in racial superiority) the fine line part comes in when you quantify speech by saying it should not hurt someone else. how can you define what hurts a person? how can tell at what point a religious doctrine specifically hurts an individual, or a lone person carrying a sign on a sidewalk damages another person who reads the sign?
what i think is wrong is those who would shut out negative speech without discussing what makes it negative, and the implications of such speech on various groups, or society at large. if you simply put the elephant in a closet, it doesn’t disappear. it simply shits in the dark.
My opinion is that the severity of the law should depend on the intent behind the language. Some televangelist who offers salvation from the disease of homosexuality probably, in his warped mind, believes he’s doing people a favor. I wouldn’t support suppressing all negative discussion of homosexuality, as long as the intent was an intellectual one.
But I don’t have a problem at all with arresting some degenerate who screams homophobic or otherwise hateful words at people. There’s no question in my mind that the intent behind that kind of behavior makes that verbal assault, and assault is illegal.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing Trinity adopt that kind of policy. Might make all that babbling about “fighting hatred on campus” actually sound like it meant something.