U.S. CONSTITUTION PROTECTS HATRED

DesertPeace

January 10, 2010 at 10:11 am (Corrupt Politics, Islamophobia, Racism)

The question is no longer “What would Jesus do”? It now is ” What is the U.S. government DOING”?

Prosecutors say Anti-Muslim cartoons protected by Constitution

By Hart Van Denburg

In a story that has been picked up by The New York Times and the AP, The St. Cloud Times is reporting that two county prosecutors will not file charges against a man they say has admitted to posting anti-Musim cartoons near a mosque, a Somali-owned store and other places in and around St. Cloud.

Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall and Benton County Attorney Robert Raupp, in separate letters to St. Cloud City Attorney Jan Petersen, said the cartoons showing the Prophet Muhammad having sex with animals represented protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations condemned the cartoons as hate speech.

Investigators say the man told them that Muslims are “anti-Christian” and that he found the images online and thought it would be “cool” to post them on utility poles in the St. Cloud area.
“While I do not condone the crude and distasteful messages which the suspect in this case attempted to convey, criminal prosecution under the statutes available to this office would not be successful,” Raupp writes. More:





Kendall wrote that the cartoons were political speech, and that the suspect was educating people rather than threatening them. More:
Petersen told the paper he had not decided on whether to file other charges.
After news spread about the cartoons in December, Minnesota CAIR spokeswoman Jessica Zikri called on community leaders to speak out.

“We believe there is a direct correlation between anti-Muslim rhetoric and bias incidents targeting American Muslims,” she said. “Our state’s political and religious leaders need to speak out strongly against anti-Muslim hate, just as they would speak out against any other form of intolerance.”

Click on the SOURCE to see the fine print better.

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The above is taking place despite the following….

Hate crimes in the U.S.

Description of U.S. hate crime legislation, from all viewpoints

A hate crime is a crime of violence that is motivated by hatred of the group to which the victim belongs. Usually, the perpetrator and the victim are strangers to each other. For example, gay bashing involves a violent homophobe physically attacking a victim from the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. Typically, the goal is twofold:



To express hatred against a random member of that community, and

To terrorize the entire community of which the victim is a member.



Many persons, often conservatives, feel that the perpetrator should be penalized according to the injuries sustained by the victim.

After a decade of struggle, an inclusive hate crimes bill was successful. The bill passed the federal House and Senate on 2009-OCT-22. President Obama signed it into law on 2009-OCT-28.

It will help protect every person in the U.S. from being the victim of a hate crime in eight separate ways, on the basis of their:

Race,

Color,

Religion,

National origin,

Gender, whether female, male or intersexual,

Disability,

Sexual orientation, whether they be bisexual, homosexual, or heterosexual, and

Gender identity, whether they be transgendered or cis-gendered



Taken from THIS Report

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