What started as a high school feud ended up as a hate crime charge for two Crystal Lake, Ill. teenagers. IOne of the unidentified 16-year old girls had recently fallen out with a male friend. As part of her childish revenge against him, she and her cohort printed up some pamphlets of the boy kissing another boy.
The young ladies also decided to include some decidedly, devilishly unladylike messages, such as “God Hates Fags”. Those flyers landed the girls in juvenile court on Tuesday, where they face charges of hate crime, obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi wants justice, saying the girls broke the state’s hate crime law, for their “crime” specifically targeted their ex-friend based on his sexual orientation. Bianchi’s just upholding the law:
This is a classic case of the kind of conduct that the state Legislature was directing the law against. This is what the legislators wanted to stop, this kind of activity.
Some of the girls’ classmates, however, think the girls should get off. One student, 16-year old Ryan Diamond brushed off the idea of a hate crime charge, with a disclaimer:
I don’t care that people are gay. If my best friend told me he was gay, I’d be fine with it. I just don’t think my friend should be arrested for that. Give them a warning, give them a fine, that’s one thing, but to arrest them, that’s bull.
To Diamond and others who question the charges, First Assistant McHenry County State’s Attorney Thomas Carroll says, “You can be charged with a hate crime if you make a statement or take an action that inflicts injury or incites a breach of the peace based on a person’s race, creed, gender or perceived sexual orientation,”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Hate crimes laws have been weighing on our national shoulders as of late. The House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 1592, which offers a federal hand in solving hate crime laws. The Senate’s debating their version of the law – The Matthew Shepard Act – and some people predict success. Unfortunately, President Bush has vowed to veto any hate crime law that comes his way. He and his righteous pals believe hate crime legislation not only offer special protections, but hinders religious expression and free speech: an argument made in the Crystal Lake Case.
Chicago’s CBS affiliate reports:
Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the case illustrated a complex struggle between protecting targeted groups of people and protecting the First Amendment.
In fact, the issue is so divisive that the ACLU of Illinois differed from its national organization’s support of a federal hate-crimes law… “We have a rather strong and historic strain of protecting free speech in this affiliate in a way that caused us to differentiate from the national organization,” Yohnka said.
Where do you draw the line with this sort of thing? Even if you don’t want to play the hate crime card, at the very least the girls committed a misdemeanor under Illinois’ anti-bullying provisions. That, of course, would be cleared from their record when they turn 18, just like this contentious hate crime charge.
Two 15-year-olds charged with hate crime [Daily Herald]
Students targeting classmate they had dispute with, authorities say [Daily Herald]
ChristopherM
I’d have to know more about the context (i.e. did this actually pose a serious risk of inciting violence against the boy?), but I would probably come down on the side of the ACLU on this one. These two rotten children outed a fellow student in print and basically said they don’t like gay folks. Evil and vicious? Sure. But a hate crime? I don’t think so. You have to be extremely careful with these statutes to keep them from infringing free speech. It sounds like Illinois’ statute could use some work.
That also brings up the question of the purpose of hate crime laws. I go back and forth on whether we really need them in regards to violent crime. After all, shouldn’t all violent crime be punished? Why should we also punish for the specific motivation beyond the obvious intent requirement to put a degree to the crime? It is almost punishing for thought as well as action, which we already have to do to some extent for grading crimes (for example, murder vs. manslaughter, differentiated by whether it was premeditated or done in the heat of passion). That is a lot for a jury to determine mostly from inference, and I think it could lead to a degree of unfairness. At the same time, I see where it is important to send a message to the public that certain types of crime are especially heinous and not acceptable in our society any longer. It won’t deter the violent homophobes, but it has the potential of moving the rest of society further against them.
Zack
Is there such a thing as a misdemeanor hate crime? An honest question, even if this incident is being charged as a felony.
These girls clearly meant to expose the boy to bullying, and to bully him themselves. And anti-gay hate speech was a factor.
I wonder, though, how they can be charged and Fred Phelps not? Does their status as minors afford them fewer rights? Why is Phelps given the right to bully? Is his speech any less a loud “Fire!” in the theater (or Kylie Minogue concert)?
Perhaps expulsion would have been better, since it acted against the code of ethics of the school. Let the girls go run to Topeka and get their educations from the inbred Westboros.
Zack
ChristopherM, I think hate crimes exist because the crimes committed are not only against the obvious victim(s) of the violence, but also any person who is a member of the group the victim(s) was targeted for. The message is hate crimes is clear, if you are black, queer, Islamic, etc. you are, will, and should be a target of violence. It creates a very specific, very compromising fear. In this country that’s unacceptable.
Do these harsher punishments actually work in dissuading violent crime based on hate? Well, that’s a different issue.
ChristopherM
Two things, Zack: First, Phelps is a boil on the butt of humanity, but if he doesn’t have the right to say such horrible things about us, then what’s to stop government from shutting us up too when they don’t like what we say? I think his speech is different from yelling Fire in a theater because you can’t directly link his speech to violence with any tangible proof (with sociological evidence, perhaps, but not with anything that can show definite causation).
Regarding your second point, what is the difference in someone being shot in the head for being gay and someone being shot in the head because the shooter just doesn’t like them personally? Both are unacceptable, but should one be punished more harshly than the other? Like I said, I go back and forth on that issue, and I think both sides have good points. I do think as a society we need to lower sentencing for victimless crimes and increase it for violent crime. We don’t take violent crime seriously enough, and we seem to have become desensitized to the point that it makes virtually no impact anymore.
bassey
I thought you were bi.
jim
So if the boy had just printed up flyers of the girl flashing her private parts and written across it in big letters “CUNT” would it have all just been a giddy
free speech fest no harm no foul?
Just curious.
Matt in SJ
I think Zack hit the nail on the head when he said that the girls ment to expose him to bullying. They used his sexual orientation as a reason to intimidate him and endanger him. I know I sure wouldn’t feel safe if those pamphlets had my face on them back in highschool.
This has a pretty disruptive effect on his life at that school, and his ability to express himself. He might have to change schools, and if he stays how will his behavior be affected.
I say lock the brats up, charge them with whatever you charge people who make threats and tack on an addition penalty for the motive. A stiff fine, community service, expulsion, a restraining order, probation, and a trip with that guy from Grey’s Anatomy to the “Tolerance Musuem” (ha) would suffice.
qjersey
Shit, imagine the trouble these two vicious little bitches could cause in college.
sorry but the “school yard” argument doesn’t fly. It is exactly because adults refuse to step in during jr. high and high school that kids grow up thinking they can verbally assault gays and others that don’ meet their slippery standards whenver they want.
ChristopherM
No Jim, it probably would have been harassment, or it may have fallen under one of the many anti-bullying statutes states and municipalities have (and most of which I fully support as a victim of anti-gay bullying when I was a kid). But hate crime? Come on! A hate crime is someone getting the shit kicked out of them because they’re a part of a target group or perceived to be. It isn’t when someone calls someone else out for being gay.
Again, I would like to know more about the situation regarding whether they intended to or actually did put him at a serious risk for physical harm, in which case the hate crime statute might apply. Most likely, though, it should fall under the anti-bullying statute where it belongs.
ChristopherM
And QJersey, you are absolutely right, which is why every state needs an anti-bullying statute that holds school officials accountable for the physical and mental health of their students when damages is being inflicted at the hands of classmates. There wasn’t a day that went by in high school that I didn’t get called a fag. I was shoved, had things thrown at me, and even though teachers knew what was happening, no one did a damn thing about it. It makes me deliriously happy when I see kids now brave enough to stand up and fight back against these uncaring school systems that aren’t doing their job to protect kids so they can be educated.
Zack
I’m sorry if I was confusing in my discussion of Phelps. I think he actually does have a right to say the hateful things he does–sociological evidence of its results in violence aside. And Phelps even calls for bullying, but just skirts the explicit call for violence. I wasn’t sure the government had an interest in pursuing this further than perhaps a fine. If Phelps is allowed to be cruel and hateful without the government coming down on him, shouldn’t these girls?
However, high school isn’t the adult world. In a small, adolescent community, an announcement like that could be interpreted as something more akin to the theater metaphor. I can see how a teenager trapped in the school where this has happened could be in very real danger. The trouble is that laws tend to be vague on the lines that separate these things. I support hate crimes legislation of violent crimes, and even non-violent threats, etc. If that is what the girls are being charged with–threats–maybe they should go for a little more punishment. But I’m not sure, ambivalent at best.
Either way, they should face serious consequences with the school, like an expulsion so strong they won’t be able to get into another good school because the footprints on their ass are so glowing and red that they’d disturb the rest of the student body.
Andy
I live in the town just north of Crystal Lake. The girls were trying to incite violence against a fellow student, which is pretty bad. But the main reason they’re getting this railroad is because they ran from the police…cops out here will throw everything they can at you if you piss them off.
Timothy Phelps
You bunch of simpering cowards! These are words! If you can call people names with impunity on this tacky board, why is it that others have to be punished criminally for offending your filthy sensibilities?
This country has wholesale abandoned any notion of free thought or expression … as soon as filthy little sexual perverts are offended. It’s a clear indication that this nation has been cursed by God … and no longer has the only thing that made it greater than other nations: The First Amendment!
The reason Fred Phelps (or every other member of Westboro Baptist Church) will never be subject to this nonsense is because we don’t cower to tyrants in prosecutorial positions. We cram their cowardice down their throats and make them spend more than the jurisdiction’s net worth chasing their folly.
More importantly, God Almighty has our backs and turns their folly against them. It’s called “the power of the dog” in scripture … and we’re not subject to it!
Magormissabib!
ChristopherM
Personally I LOVE all the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church. Every time one of them goes on television, Flowbee hair cut aflutter with righteous anger toward every person who isn’t like them, it makes all of us look completely reasonable. Goddess bless you crazy Phelps family!
Jeff
I bet if these girls had a flier with a picture of me kissing a woman which stated “God Hates Straights” nothing would have happened. I guess you have to be able to take it in the butt to become part of the “protected class”.
Paul Raposo
“I bet if these girls had a flier with a picture of me kissing a woman”
Jeff, why don’t you perform your own experiment and see what happens and then report back here, rather than just posting stupid comments that make you look like a shithead?
Dawn
I think the real issue here is bullying – and bullying is were hate crimes get to fester unnoticed.
The two girls are real pieces of work. As a society we really need to teach our children to take responsibility for their behavior. Hopefully, this will be the case. But likely we are now going to see the girls be seen as “victimized” rather than punished.
Were either of those girls my daughters, ohh the laying into they would have gotten. They’d be begging for juvvy.
Of course, I wouldn’t raise my kids to think in terms that would allow them to even consider the idea of harassing another kid in that manner.
Ugh, what is this country coming to.
phatdaddy
“Magormissabib!”
WTF? Just curious.
I’m not quite convinced that a hate crime was actually the intent in this situation. Bullying and intimidation certainly but vicious and mean little girls have always been a part of the high school landscape. They’ll be hard pressed to get a felony conviction for what appears to be more a reprehensible act of gross misconduct. Oh and then there’s that silly little free speech thing. Arrest and imprisonment without bond seems a bit excessive.
This really could have been handled by the school and still should be. And while expulsion should certainly be an option, creativity in terms of their punishment would just be so much more fun and perhaps teach the little snots a lesson. Counseling, community service and a little public humiliation/censure.
Certainly a little counseling. And a little oxygen. It must be hard to breathe with your head shoved that far up your ass.
Emptying bedpans, etc for the local hospice would be a great service to the community and might even teach a little humanity. Friday and Saturday nights for a year.
Private apologies to the affected student. And then very public apologies to the entire school follwed by a forced transfer. They’ll be pariahs wherever they go.
“God Hates Straights”
LMAO! That explains a lot!
Shelli Hardin
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