Dear Richard Thompson
Feb 11, 2010 Eliminationist Rhetoric, Judicial Activism, gay
Sir:
I have just learned of your statement in the Michigan group’s lawsuit attempting to undo the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. I should like to repeat the pertinent passage here, in which you claim there is “no need” to extend hate crimes definitions:
“Of the 1.38 million violent crimes reported in the U.S. by the FBI in 2008, only 243 were considered as motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation,” he wrote on the group’s Web site. “The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin.”
Translation: “Help! help, I’m being oppressed!”
Mr. Thompson, I can only suppose that by “Christians expressing their Biblically-based belief” you mean the part that involves kidnapping homosexuals, transporting them to the middle of nowhere, and beating them to death. Which is what happened to Matthew Shepard, and which has always been considered a crime in the United States of America. The law named for the late Mr. Shepard extends some special penalties, but is actually designed to let local law enforcement officials call on the technology and expertise of federal agencies to solve such crimes.
Your statement suggests that “Biblically-based beliefs” could reasonably consist of allowing murderers to get away with murder. Problem: there’s this commandment in your Bible that ends with “SHALL NOT KILL” and begins with “THOU.” Having read your Bible from cover to cover over the years I am convinced of the opposite; that in fact the Lord and Savior of the Christian religion was rather militantly non-violent.
What your words suggest is that communities far from the urban center become havens for murderers. I doubt the people of Michigan or the United States of America would condone such a view. In fact, I’d venture that even in the shiniest hinterlands and darkest hollers there aren’t many American communities that would agree with your implication.
Personally, I find it rather evil. Your Thomas Moore Foundation advertises itself as an antidote to the ACLU, but in fact it seems a curious judicial activism to undo the very foundations of justice in America.
Nor am I agreeing to the presence of graven images in state courts: the Athenians carved their laws in stone above the people’s assembly so they could all see them, and we know how that turned out. What the Ten Commandments represent isn’t a godly source of law, but a way of codifying laws that apply to everyone in the same way, i.e. equal protection. Compare them to the Code of Hammurabi, which prescribed differing penalties for crimes between sexes and social ranks.
I should note that your organization represents a long-running crusade by the same agencies that gave us the recent example of judicially-active jurisprudence in Citizens United. Fitting the patterns of conservatism, these corporate entities are now elevated to the status of biological ones and released from their shackles just in time for Wall Street to oppose financial reform with billion-dollar ad buys.
These corporate persons have remarkable impact on our lives, as we eat their food, live in their houses, and work for them. Over the years the working American has thus become utterly dependent on these unelected and unaccountable corporate citizens. The age of conservative ascendancy saw them admitted new powers over our lives, taking even more control over us. We have been warned against Big Brother while the little brothers were being annointed.
You advocate murder, but in the name of a movement that serves the agenda of corporate slavery. Which is why I would like to offer you a nice big cup of Shut The Fuck Up.
Sincerely,
Matt Osborne
