The American Family Association’s claims about the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill were so outlandish that they’ve been debunked on the urban-myth-busting website Snopes.
Claim: A bill before Congress would make it a “hate crime” for pastors and churches to speak against homosexuality.
Status: False.
See: Hate Crimes Prevention Act @ Snopes Urban Legends.
If you look at the organizations and persons most adamantly opposed to the hate crimes amendment, you can easily see that their agenda for the exaggerations, lies and deception about the amendment is most likely because they are the worst of the homophobic, Islamophobic, and racist hate mongers of modern society.
How many of these opponents include the fact that this amendment is just closing loopholes in a 1968 law that has been upheld by the Supreme Court? How many mention the fact that this amendment will also protect women and the disabled? It seems that the opponents all focus on the protection it will offer on the basis of sexual orientation. Since the amendment specifically requires that anyone committing a hate crime under the proposed amendment must be the one who voices or writes a pattern of hate crime directly related to whatever violent crime he/she committed, there is no possibility that pastoral preaching, or reading any holy text, or owning any holy text, could be prosecuted under this amendment. I suspect that those most strongly opposed are so because they realize it will bring more attention to the hatred that they espouse, which, while not a crime, does qualify as reprehensible.