The Religious Right wants George W. Bush to veto the anti-hate speech law that has just been passed by the House. The evangelicals believe that the law will criminalize free speech about their aversion to homosexuality. In fact, the law will halt speech that directly leads to violence against people based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability. The law budgets ten billion dollars over the next two years to help local law enforcement, and authorizes federal authorities to participate in resolution of hate crimes. There is nothing wrong with this legislation because keeping society civil is the role of the government. Advocating violence toward anyone that causes unlawful acts based on race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability disturbs the peace of society.
Just look at what happened during the Third Reich where the rhetoric against disabled people led to thousands of disabled people being imprisoned and killed in places such as Hartheim Castle in Austria and the Hadamar Hospital in Wiesbaden Germany. What does the Religious Right want in promoting a veto of hate speech laws? Eugenics? Gas chambers? To play the devil's advocate (and I would never advocate any such violence), if the Religious Right doesn't like hate speech laws, they might as well send the hard-core Christians in wheelchairs to be euthanised first.
Morally, George W. Bush and his evangelical cohorts should not be proud of their veto of hate speech laws because negating such legislation affects those, the disabled, who deserve the same rights, the same legal protections against invective speech, and the same freedoms as the able-bodied.
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