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Smith was a member of the World Church of the Creator, which is led by "the Rev. Matthew Hale, Pontifex Maximus," and publishes such dubious texts as The White Man's Bible, Nature's Eternal Religion, and Salubrious Living. Hale preaches an ideology of paranoia, rage, and self-pity, and Smith acted on it with fatal results. His crime has led Rep. Jeff Schoenberg to propose House Bill 136 in the Illinois General Assembly.

Opposing hate crimes has joined the list of cost-free political commitments, and Schoenberg's bill breezed through the Illinois House on a 96-10 vote in late March. Only a bill affirming belief in motherhood and apple pie could have garnered a more glibly righteous vote. If the bill becomes state law or inspires similar legislation across the nation, Smith's cowardly actions will have inflicted long-term harm on the law and, quite possibly, on religious freedom.

Existing law in Illinois says that a hate crime can be motivated by animus against a person's "perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or national origin." Schoenberg's proposed law would punish anyone who "agrees with another to utilize violence, threats, or intimidation in order to interfere with another person's free exercise of any right or privilege" guaranteed by state or federal constitutions or other laws.

In other words, the bill creates the possibility of treating a minister as a "coconspirator" if a parishioner commits a hate crime. Compounding the threat further, the bill defines a hate crime as broadly as Planned Parenthood defines the importance of access to abortion for a woman's emotional well-being.

Is a pastor who preaches against sexual involvement apart from marriage guilty of intimidation? Apparently so, if one believes the activists who claim that fear and hatred are the only explanations for opposing nonmarital unions.

How about a pastor who follows Jesus' advice in Matthew 18 when confronting a parishioner engaged in open and unrepentant sin such as usury or gossip? Courts already have heard frivolous lawsuits from cohabiting couples who were confronted by their church leaders, so why should other sins be exempt from state protection?

One provision in Schoenberg's bill would punish any hate crime committed in "a church, synagogue, or. … place used for religious worship." This provision could well guard against the desecration of churches, synagogues, and mosques. But, again, such overly broad wording could also smooth a path for ridiculous claims against religious leaders who preach the traditional doctrines and ethics of their faith—"hate speech" to some modernist ears—within the walls of their own sanctuaries.

Andrew Sullivan, the most refreshingly contrarian gay pundit in America, has criticized how advocates of hate-crime laws have exploited the death of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man beaten to death by two beer-swilling thugs in 1998.

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May 21 2001, Vol. 45, No. 7