Hate Crimes Legislation Sign of Defeat for Christian Worldview

The recent passing of hate crimes legislation is causing some consternation in Christian circles but not enough and the concern it is raising is mostly of the wrong kind. 

True, it is bad law.  The idea that there can be different punishments for the same crime based merely on motive is a principle that is begging for abuse.  More worrisome is the idea that others can be held accountable for the crimes of another.  What this really does is make 'offending' a crime in itself.  Rather than an objective act in space and time- the criminal act, if you will- something becomes criminal if it is associated with something that others find offensive.  And being offended is something subjective.

The passing of the hate crimes legislation has a lot of meaning, will reveal many implications, and is a definite sign that the Christian worldview is under seige.  I contend, though, that the real battle was already lost.  I speak of the battle for logic, reason, common sense, and, in a word, the rule of law.

At bottom, the hate crimes legislation is an attack on the rule of law and the principles of legal interpretation that held sway for decades in America and centuries in British common law.  This rule of law was strongly influenced by the Christian world view in an important sense which I wish to explicitly address;  namely, the capacity for individuals to constrain their behavior based on the 'words on the paper.'

This capacity is a by product of a worldview which is bound by the authority of a set of documents- the Bible.  Over the decades, what a text means has shifted away from grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, and the like, and become more and more simply about what an individual thinks it means.  We are now a nation filled with people who think they are the source of meaning for a text, as a consequence, despite the fact that the hate crimes legislation- like so much legislation passed over the years- is flatly unconstitutional, this hardly matters.

This is a symptom of a previous rejection of the Bible as a source of authority and the relegation of the meaning of the Scriptural text from their original authors to the modern reader, instead.

And that battle was lost years ago.

No longer feeling constrained by what the Scriptures meant by the original authors, modern readers decide on their own.  With that habit firmly entrenched, they do that with other texts.  The Constitution is the prime example, but really anything written is subject to the same attitude.  Unbound from any principles of literary interpretation and no longer feeling pressure to make one's actions match what merely exists on paper, there is only one source of authority left that really matters:  the subjective whims of whoever happens to have power at this particular moment.

In this spirit, behavior is no longer the crux of the issue in society.  It becomes a battle between whims:  It is people's intentions, their motives, etc, that matters.  Are they offended?  That settles it.  It is not necessary to actually do something criminal, it is enough to say something that hurts someone's feelings (and everything that is said offends someone, somewhere).  By necessity, laws resting on this basis, to be enforced, must have the backing ultimately of the majority.  Hence, rather than being a protection for minorities, such an approach accomplishes the opposite.  And, since majorities shift over time, it is entirely possible that a 'protected group' today may be out of favor and power and based on the precedent that they themselves have established, be the next targeted group.

The Hate Crimes legislation is really a symptom of a larger problem.  It is really a sign of an earlier defeat.  It is obviously an affront to the first amendment right to free speech as well as the right to practice one's religion.  Yes, it is that, but worse (if that were possible) it is one long sup from the Stream of Sentimentality that no longer protects minorities, but coddles them, insulating them by threat of punishment from opposing view points.

We will have to wait and see how the hate crimes legislation is actually implemented in this country but even if courts enforce it by remaining faithful to the text, that would just be pure blind luck, for courts too have drunk deep from the Stream of Sentimentality.  A law means, ultimately, what 9 folks in black robes say it means;  it does not mean what basic objective interpretation might suggest.  This is a recipe for disaster.  If it does not fall on us as a nation via 'hate speech' it will some other way, and it will have the same root causes when it does.

Anthony Horvath is the Executive Director of Athanatos Christian Ministries and the author of the Birth Pangs series.  He is also a pro-life speaker and an apologist.