Brad has a very convincing post below attacking the arguments leveled against the new Hate Crimes Bill. I am hesitant to support hate crimes legislation, for the usual libertarian, "thought crimes" reasons, but the arguments being presented against it by the religious right are indeed specious. For a nuanced take on the bill, check out my friend Dale Carpenter's piece last month in the Bay Area Reporter. Carpenter was a victim of a hate crime, and the reasons he offers against passage of the bill are compelling (he criticizes the bill on federalism grounds). For one of the early--and best--arguments against hate crimes legislation, take a look at Jon Rauch's piece in TNR 16 years ago. But there's something fishy in the National Review editorial on the matter--which Brad also links to--and this phrase stuck out: "We want to deter and punish crimes against blacks, women, homosexuals, and everyone else. But we do not want to open the door to legal punishment for harboring incorrect thoughts about controversial issues especially when those incorrect thoughts are part of the historic teaching of our major religions." Presumably, National Review does not mean to imply that there are "historic teaching[s] of our major religions" against blacks and women. What the editors mean is gays. And what are those "incorrect thoughts" that the bill is criminalizing? Not traditionally religious thoughts about homosexuality; these are protected. (After all, there are plenty of people in this country who find homosexuality immoral and don't lynch homosexuals.) The bill only punishes people whose thoughts about homosexuality veer from mere disapproval to the belief that violence is a suitable recourse. National Review is conflating a passive disapproval of homosexuality with the violent reaction to it. Of course, the Old Testament, the Koran and other religious works--as fundamentalists anywhere ought to admit--do call for outright violence against homosexuals. Yet many religious conservatives somehow rationalize their "tolerance" of homosexuality while simultaneously condemning it as immoral and destructive. This is theological incoherence, and it is what happens when you base your politics on a religious text. --James Kirchick