"Plaintiffs do not allege that they have been prosecuted under the Act, that they have been threatened with such prosecution or that they intend to engage in any conduct prohibited by the Act," federal attorneys argued.
So . . . we have a law on the books that seeks to address hate crimes. Four individuals who have not committed any crimes under the act, been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution under that act, insisted the law nevertheless was a direct threat against them. Quite apart from the question of their standing to sue (which, it seems, would be the federal attorney's case in making the above quoted statement), I have to wonder how folks on the right will react to this summary dismissal.
Had any of the four individuals who brought this suit actually been facing prosecution under the law, that would be one thing. For example, if one of the pastors in question had been hauled before a federal District Court for prosecution under the law for a sermon in which he carried on about how evil gay folks are, then, at the very least, the judge could consider - on appeal - whether or not the law violated his First Amendment rights.
Eager for headlines, or perhaps ignorant of how the law works (and hiring lawyers who were willing to take money even though they probably understood the law a little better than the plaintiffs), these folks tried to jump right past the issue of how this law persecutes poor Christian ministers from speaking their minds and insist that it does so even absent any application of the law in specific cases.
Quite apart from the spectacle of Christian ministers (for legal and tax purposes, they are called "Ministers of the Gospel", and I know this because that is how my wife describes herself every year at tax time) insisting that a law punishing hate crimes is anti-Christian because it prevents them from speaking out against sexual minorities, this at least reminds some people that the rule of law has two parts - laws and rules. As soon as some poor minister gets hauled before a court, arrested under the terms of the Act, I might have sympathy for them. As it stands, however, getting all sorts of attention, crying, "Poor, poor pitiful me", even though they aren't poor and are not to be pities is actually quite sad.
(h/t, Chuck Currie)
