Local forum: Hate speech not a hate crime

What defines hate speech and where is the defining line drawn? Are local media stirring the kind of anger that could lead to violence? And although it isn’t hate speech, is reciting the Lords’ Prayer at the opening of Sussex County Council meetings a protected form of speech?

About 60 people attended a Dining with Progressives dinner Sunday, Jan. 9, at Fish On restaurant in the Villages of Five Points near Lewes, to discuss hate speech and other forms of speech in America.

Dining with Progressives is a nonpartisan forum for all progressives.

“I’m personally against hate speech, but I will defend your right to use it,” said Kathleen MacRae, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Delaware.

MacRae recently relocated to the East Coast where she was raised, after working as development director in the ACLU’s Albuquerque, N.M. office. She led an effort to eliminate the death penalty in New Mexico. In 2009, after 10 years of organizing and activism, the state abolished the death penalty.

“There’s no distinction between what comes out of a person’s mouth and what we’d like to hear come out,” MacRae said.

She said government is on a slippery slope when it begins telling people what they can and cannot say.

MacRae said that in Delaware, as in the rest of the country, it’s a criminal offense to interfere with an individual’s First Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech.

She said hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, but hate crimes are something entirely different. Hate crimes are committed when an individual targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain group, usually defined by things including race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality or political affiliation.

“If I’m in your face and I say, ‘I hate you nigger,’ that’s a hate crime. If I’m standing at a podium and I say, ‘I hate niggers,’ that’s not illegal,” she said.

In another example she said someone who puts Nazi swastikas or their own home is engaging in hate speech. But if they put a swastika on a synagogue or other private property, they’ve committed a hate crime.

MacRae said determining whether Sussex County Council is violating free speech by opening meetings with the Lords’ Prayer isn’t clear.

She said if asked to, the ACLU would check into matters, but the government choosing to support a particular religious point of view is illegal.

McRae also cited a 1949 Chicago case in which a Catholic priest made racist and anti-Semitic statements during a speech. She said the priest’s speech was said to have stirred about 800 people inside the building – and 1,000 protestors outside – to anger and unrest.

The priest was arrested and convicted for disturbing the peace, and the city of Chicago banned inflammatory speech. Eventually, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court where Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, reversed the priest’s conviction.

MacRae said Douglas wrote in his opinion, “The purpose of free speech is to invite dispute,” even if it incites anger.

“All free speech rights are connected to all other free speech rights,” MacRae said.“It’s important that all rights of speech are protected.”

During the question segment of the meeting, some expressed concern about what they said they’ve been hearing on local radio station WGMD. “How do you address someone who says point a gun at your congressman?” asked Pete Schott, referring to the Saturday, Jan. 8 shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

Giffords was holding one of her regular town hall meetings in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson when she was shot in the head at close range by a 22-year-old man. She remained in critical condition at press time.

“If the community is concerned, they should talk to the radio station’s owners and advertisers,” MacRae suggested.

Some suggested an organized boycott of businesses advertising on the radio station.

“Something needs to be done because someone could shoot someone in Sussex County next week,” said Ann Nolan. “We have to do something about WGMD,” said Joanne Cabry, a Dining with Progressives organizer. Radio station management could not be reached for comment at press time.

“It’s never happened that someone on radio has been charged for something they’ve said,” MacRae said.