The Family Research Council sure does have a way with words. Though they like their members to be on the straight and narrow - straight being the operative word, of course - their take on hate crimes are anything but. In fact, they're quite tortuous.

The so-called Defenders of Family, Faith and Freedom, whatever that means, have launched a new campaign urging their members to fight "pro-gay" hate crime laws. You see, in their twisted cultural lexicon, "hate crime laws" translates to "thought crime laws": discriminatory legislation that targets their brand of Christianity's prime directive: intolerance. Of course, they don't use that word. They prefer "tradition", "Biblical expression" and the such, as when Tony Perkins cites Swedish Reverend Ake Green's arrest for preaching an anti-gay "Biblical message".

Old Tony - who speaks over a saccharine-soaked, Christian flavored patriotic montage - goes on to urge "value voters" (they still exist) to sign the FRC petition, which insists:

Whereas one purpose of so-called "hate crimes" laws is to increase punishment for the thoughts a person may have been having while committing a crime, meaning such laws are really thought crimes laws, and;

Whereas increasing punishment for a criminal's thoughts could quickly be expanded to outlawing the expression of other thoughts that liberal legislators and activist judges, under pressure from homosexual activists, list as "hateful," including sincere religious convictions and Bible-based moral values such as opposition to homosexual behavior...
...

Therefore, I/we the undersigned do urge all members of the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, and any other law-making body to actively oppose any effort to enact thought crimes laws.

But don't worry. Perkins and his brethren aren't advocating hate - oh, sorry, thought -crimes. He makes sure to mention, "Acts of physical violence against anyone, homosexual or heterosexual, should be vigorously prosecuted." The psychological violence of repressive religion? That's totally cool!

Not one to be left out, Human Rights Campaign has some words of their own. And they're not good. Joe Solmonese snaps back:

It's easy to understand why the Family Research Council would feel the need to lie about the hate crimes law's existence. The existing federal hate crimes law already covers the employees of the FRC under its "religion" provision. That means the FRC is either against granting others the same protections it has already enjoyed for almost forty years under current federal law or it wants to repeal the existing hate crime law. Talk about special rights.

Ooo, girl! Them's fighting words! And we like the way they sound.

This could be the biggest battle since Superman took on Bizarro! Think about it: Human Rights Campaign and Family Research Council are both based in DC, they practically have the same initials and they both both claim to be the "largest of their kind". Although, it's here that HRC takes the upper hand. FRC only claims to be the "largest pro-family organization in Washington DC". HRC, meanwhile, assures us that it remains "America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality".

Sorry, FRC, America's way bigger than DC. And no amount of wordplay can change that.

Stop Thought Crimes [FRC]