Separation of Synagogue and State

HATE LAWS: Brainchild of the ADL

By Reverend Ted Pike

After June 15, 2004, Senator Gordon Smith, Republican sponsor of the "Hate Crimes Amendment to HR4200" [Amdt. 3183], proudly announced to the press that 3183 passed the U S Senate, 65-37. This effectively ended protest to the Senate by many concerned Americans. 3183 will establish a "thought police" bureaucracy leading to the end of free speech - the way Canada's "anti-hate" law has already done.

Yet Senator Smith was pulling the wool over our eyes! The Senate did not cast their final vote on 3183. Instead, they approved an amended version of 3183 and its attachment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2004 [HR4200]. 3183 now hangs conveniently out of sight with other "pork" on the belly of a huge arms bill approved by both houses of Congress.

After September 7th at the earliest, the Senate and House in conference will decide how much "pork," including 3183, can be retained in the arms bill. Then, and only then, will both Senate and House finally vote on whether 3183 will become law. Until then, senators who may have voted for 3183 inadvertently, unaware of its attachment to the arms bill, can still be persuaded to vote "no." By clever disinformation, Senator Smith dried up all protest to the Senate, implying passage of his hate bill was a "done deal." Don't believe it! Now, more than ever, both senators and congressmen need to hear from you urging them to vote against all "anti-hate" legislation. Especially request them to cut 3183 out of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act.

Forty years ago, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith lobbied Parliament to pass Canada's anti-hate law. Similarly, the ADL is the architect of the present "anti-hate" bill before Congress. Beginning with its national "Model Anti-Hate Law Competition" in 1988, the ADL has pioneered anti-hate legislation in the United States at both state and federal levels.

In 1988, the ADL, in testimony to Congress, made it clear that, as a veteran "civil liberties organization," it would like to assume the role of defining for the nation what constitutes "hate" and "hate crime."

Attorney General Janet Reno responded by praising the ADL's role in creating model anti-hate legislation. She brought the U S Department of Justice into close cooperation with the ADL and ordered Director William Sessions and all FBI field offices to establish links with the ADL. She also authorized the ADL to instruct every U S police department in how to define "hate" and recognize "hate crimes." Thus, in every hamlet in America, police are taught by the ADL, through instructional manuals, seminars and videos, how to define and recognize a "hate motivated incident."

What is the ADL's definition of "hate crime"?

The ADL never uses a logical definition of a bias/hate crime. Logical definitions are: “Bias motivating a crime is a bias crime.”

Hate motivating a crime is a hate crime.

Instead, the ADL always makes "bias" equal with "hate." It says: “Bias motivating a crime is a hate crime. ‘

Of course, bias is not hate. In fact, many biases are good. For example, a bias against rattlesnakes may be a life saver. Yet, by making bias and hate the same, the ADL reaches its real objective: not eliminating hate, but making those who are biased against homosexuals (Christians) into haters - violators of anti-hate laws.

The ADL repeatedly asserts that bias against homosexuals is not only a psychological disorder, "homophobia," but can lead to a verbal or physical "hate crime" against gays. The truth is, of course, that most evangelical Christians do not hate homosexuals - only their sinful ways.

In its training manual for police officers, the ADL suggests that if the perpetrators of a "gay bashing" cannot be found, police ought to ask the question:" "Is there in the community any group which is biased against homosexuals?" The answer is, of course, "Yes." Evangelical Christians are conspicuously biased against homosexuality, citing the biblical descriptions of sodomy as an "abomination" (Lev. 20:13) with the penalty of death to those who practice it. Are Christians potential "gay bashers"? The ADL thinks so.

The danger emerging from the hate bill presently before Congress is clear:

Persecution of Christianity!

This brings us to a remarkable observation: The ADL has always insisted on rigid "separation of church and state," vehemently opposing Christian symbols in public places or any government encouragement of Christianity. Yet, for the past fifteen years, the U S government has given "carte blanche" to a religiously affiliated organization, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith," not only to speak for the American government but to teach the justice department, the FBI, and all police departments nationwide concerning what is "hate" and who is "hateful."

B'nai B'rith is a Jewish religious, educational, fraternal organization with 500,000 male and 2,300 female members promoting Jewish religious and cultural values through its 2,300 lodges worldwide. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, founded by B'nai B'rith in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism, proudly remains a part of this faith-based organization.

If a similar "civil liberties" arm of a large Christian denomination, such as the "Methodist Federation for Social Action," were given such privileges, there would be a holy howl from church-state separatists!

Not so, when the government teams up with B'nai B'rith.

Focus on Hate
As “anti-hate” legislation is introduced, and reintroduced, into Congress, the media are focusing as never before on the problem of racial violence, holding up the Aryan Nations, the Klan, and the Skinheads, as examples of what society should outlaw. Yet it is you and I, thinking Christians of a conservative bent of mind, who are in danger of being silenced.

While gays, communists, abortionists, radical feminists, etc. are not seen as those who “hate,” every kind of “right winger” from Jerry Falwell to “The Order” is increasingly, perceived as a source of “hurtful words.” In fact, Christianity itself is coming under scrutiny. A widely distributed book called Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right by James Coates accuses fundamentalist Christianity of providing an unwholesome seedbed out of which intolerance emerges. This reflects the common Jewish belief that Christianity, by its charge that the Jews and their leaders were behind the crucifixion of Christ, has caused more “mental anguish” to the Jews than anything else in the history of the world. Although an extremist in Israeli politics, Rabbi Meir Kahane’s view of Christianity was similar to Coates’:

"I have not the slightest sympathy for Christianity or Jesus. As a believing Jew, not only is Jesus not “God” but also he is neither Messiah nor prophet. For the Jew he was a blasphemer, one who attacked the Torah as unchanging divine law and who was a false prophet and heretic.

As for Christianity, this is the faith that, in the name of Jesus, has made life for the Jewish people a living hell for 19 centuries. In its name, and in the name of Jesus, millions of Jews were massacred and the agony of life under Christians can never be sufficiently described in all its horror.”

Coates maintains that a literal interpretation of the criticism of New Testament pits the fundamentalist Christian against the Jew. Thus, there is no real substance to the claim of televangelists such as Robertson and Falwell that the church wants to “bless” Israel. Coates:

“The resulting “Pro-Semitism” voiced by so much of the liberal right is not much more comforting than the Anti-Semitism spewing from the mouths of the survivalist right… Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, told an audience in San Francisco in late 1980 that it was “no coincidence that the rise of right-wing Christian fundamentalism has been accompanied by the most serious outbreak of Anti-Semitism in America since the outbreak of World War II.”

At this stage in time, the Jewish ADL tells us we need anti-hate laws to protect the Blacks from whites, the gays from straights, the Jews from Nazis. Many fear that what they really want is a law that will silence forever the historic Christian claim that Jews were behind the crucifixion of Christ, and that Jews must now accept him as Savior to escape damnation (Acts 2:23, 36, 3:13-15, 4:10). Once broad anti-hate legislation is in place, forbidding criticism of “identifiable groups,” it will be a small matter to convince humanity (and Congress) that this ultimate “group libel” should be forbidden. The New Testament, the authority behind that charge, would of course also be censored.

Who is Prejudiced?
A major reason why this legislation is so dangerous is that “prejudice,” the condition it claims to oppose, is extremely ambiguous. For example, a minister would not think it a form of prejudice to warn a homosexual from his deviant, soul-damning lifestyle. Yet gay rights groups and the ADL would.

Whose definition of prejudice would the government follow if these bills became law? The testimony of the ADL before Congress makes it clear that the ADL is pushing hard for national acceptance of its definitions The ADL would prefer that: Federal definitions of “prejudice” should be modeled after the point of view of the ADL. Law enforcement personnel should defer to ADL definitions of prejudice when filling out reports on criminal investigations.

Law enforcement personnel should submit themselves to ADL-led sensitivity training, making them compliant with ADL definitions prejudice.

Investigating officers should be allowed to determine before trial if the accused is motivated by prejudice. (This would set up the local police, assisted by ADL guidelines, as a sort of preliminary jury, opining on matters usually relegated to the psychologist. This power over the accused is very ominous because...

If prejudice is determined, the crime should be considered much more serious, with a stiffer sentence.

Hidden Motives
Clearly, this legislation is an opportunity for the ADL to intimidate and manipulate Americans. As stated earlier the ADL exerted relentless pressure upon the Canadian government to ban “group defamation.” They succeeded. Now it is illegal in Canada to rebuke homosexuality publicly, or even to publicly state that gays have a higher rate of AIDS than anyone else. In America, the ADL is working even harder. Their initial intention is not to ban free speech entirely, but to convince us that certain forms of speech can be outlawed without doing violence to freedom of expression in general.

Incredibly, despite its Orwellian overtones, this legislation has encountered little significant opposition. Few recognize it as the foundation upon which a system of police state spying and censorship can be built.

Don't end free speech by letting Congress pass the "Hate Crimes Amendment" to HR 4200 (Amdt. 3183).

The "Hate Crimes Amendment" creates a vast federal "anti-hate" bureaucracy invading states' rights in law enforcement. It exalts the government's power to define "hate" and prosecute those it finds "hateful."

A similar "hate law" has ended free speech in Canada, fining Christians, outlawing criticism of gays, and muzzling free speech talk radio.

NATIONAL PRAYER NETWORK
P.O. Box 828
Clackamas OR 97015
www.truthtellers.org

It is vital NOW that you contact your Senators and Congressmen protesting this unprecedented threat to free speech!

Call the capitol switchboard at 202 - 225 - 3121