to conversation.

For now, I would like to simply point out there may not be legal culpability for Geller, but a case can be made there is a moral culpability.

And if anyone shot at them or threatened them with violent acts, the hate would be from those doing the shooting and violence.

That is where this gets turned on its head. The disgusting bigots become the victims. And the aggrieved become the haters.

I don't think anyone would condone that type of activity.

The response to hate speech is more free speech, not violence.

PS although I have to add that drawing a picture of Mohammed is not hate speech... You cannot allow that type of fear of violence. That is the true threat to free speech.

for the purpose of laying deceased to rest and members of society should be entitled to use a cemetery without fear of being harassed.

challenge of any kind from outside the LGBT community until they started targeting Veteran's funerals years into their devout practice of their Christian sacrament of trash talking minorities.

I can tell you this, the LGBT culture knew how to deal with such devoted hate mongers, we mocked them. We became the bread they had cast upon the waters.

If you lived in Garland Texas, would you have organized a peaceful gathering to reject the hate speech on display?

in so many words, even odious people have rights. Perhaps, especially odious people have rights. In the United States, people have the right to be hate-filled jerks.

Please note that the case was not United States v. Phelps, but Snyder v. Phelps. The US government was not trying to silence WBC or Fred Phelps.

Snyder v. Phelps

the government stepped in (under Bush) & got in the way of their free speech with many members of Congress outraged at the thought but picketing Matthew Shepard's funeral they didn't care.

nt

Do dead bodies count as immediacy, or should something even worse happen?

Does inflaming, instigating or provoking count as incitement? If she keeps doing it and people keep dying will you continue to defend her actions as 'freedom'?

...a truck bomb goes off, killing scores, you will stick to your guns and support her, cuz...you know, freedom!?

Thanks for clarifying that!!

is when one advocates violence against an individual, and in the case of threatening property, having an immediate capability (a mob on-site) of carrying out that action. Advocating violence, and being in a group advocating violence, does not constitute a criminal offense. I am not a lawyer.

Some of your examples are things done on the victim's property, and I think that moves it to harassment, and it would lose its first amendment protection. Although I think if you just said something hateful to someone on their property without leaving dead animals or hanging a noose or whatever, that would probably still be protected - at least if it just happened once. A pattern might still meet the standard for harassment, depending on the specifics. But doing it on the other person's property changes it somewhat.

I continue to be amazed at how often this misconception comes up around here.

If you want to walk down the street shouting "I HATE [fill in group]" you are perfectly entitled to do so.

Some jurisdictions have "hate crime" laws. These are not laws against hating people. "Hate crime" laws provide enhanced penalties for things that are already crimes, such as battery, if it can be shown that the defendant was motivated by a particular racial, ethnic, or religious animus (categories vary).

An adult saying to someone, not in jest, "I'm going to kill you," is a clear example of unprotected speech.

It depends on whether it was objectively capable of being perceived as a threat, and requires consideration of all of the circumstances. If I am a crazy person using my fingers as a 'gun', and clearly not capable of harming the target, then whether I am serious does not matter if it could not objectively be perceived that I could actually do so.

The noose thing is a specific form of assault. You come closest to reality here:

...our hate speech has to have a more specific implied threat or property violation underlying it, right?

We have various forms of "assault", "terroristic threatening" and various other names depending on the jurisdiction for specific threats against an individual person - a specifically identifiable one, and not some general class of people. The usual requirements are that the person be right there, an intent to cause that person apprehension of physical harm, and objective circumstances indicating the ability to act on the threat. In no jurisdiction whatsoever is this called "hate speech".

Workplace sexual harassment has nothing to do with criminal law, and the word "hostile" in "hostile environment" is probably one of the most widely misconstrued terms in that area of law.

The Gellar thing comes nowhere near any sort of crime. No one was threatened or put in apprehension of physical harm by anything her band of nitwits did. You can get together with a bunch of like-minded idiots and draw whatever you want. Additionally, hanging a religious figure in effigy is a threat against no person whatsoever (and would be pretty odd as any sort of 'hate crime' given the ordinary depiction of Jesus in countless churches).

"The Gellar thing comes nowhere near any sort of crime. " I totally agree.

That said, she foments hate and SPLC is quite accurate in designating her group a "HATE GROUP".


She is no 1st amendment "hero"--merely someone, like all of us, who lawfully benefits from 1st amendment protections (and in her case, HIDES BEHIND THEM).

exactly where the line is. You've noted that

A. A speech saying "I hate that person he/she is bad" or "I hate those people they are bad" is not a crime. I agree. Despicable but not a crime.

but at what point does it become a crime? Let me be specific, which of these is a crime and isn't a crime.

B. "I wish that person or those people would die"

C. "I would love it if someone killed that person or those people"

D. "All of you would be special if you killed that person or those people"

E. "You all should kill that person or those people"

F. "I'm telling you all you need to kill that person or those people right now."

I'm guessing F is probably a crime. But are any of B-E crimes?

If she ever commmited a violent act against a Muslim they could easily reference her history to obtain a hate crime conviction but if they would is another story with hate crimes against Muslims since 9/11 have found difficulty from law enforcement to treat it as it as one like when they announced quickly to the media the execution style killings of 3 were because of a parking space.

Unless we could exempt it because it's a "majority" religion or something of that nature.

it's clear that what they were doing in a exhibition in which people had to choose to go in is nowhere near an actionable level.

Drawing Mohammed is not, either.

If one of the speeches at the exhibition was an incitement to violence, then that might have been illegal, but I haven't seen anyone say there was something wrong with the explicit speech content. It's all been about drawing Mohammed (not a crime) or them being hate-filled people (deplorable, but not a crime either).

She's making herself a target for the crazy Muslims who do exist.

"Fire" - "crowded theater"

Even if she was explicitly inciting a crowd to violence, I don't think the targets can just drive up and shoot randomly into the crowd. The proper remedy is through law enforcement (however imperfect that is), not vigilante justice.

My OP was simply intended to pick DU's brain about what actions (that would presumably be executed through verbal or visual communication, aka "speech&quot she had to take, in a country where we protect hate speech unless it's part of another crime, for her anti-Muslim activities to rise to the level of criminality or cause for a civil suit.

I've learned a lot so far from the responses.

She essentially did everything but that. Her actions scream that. But without the express words, it wouldn't likely rise to the level of criminal incitement.

You can be charged with a hate crime if you torch someones house because of their race, because you have committed an underlying crime (arson) in order to advance a hateful belief. Same goes for assault, harassment, etc. Hang a noose in someone's yard? You're harassing them with the intent to intimidate them. The racial aspect overlays that and turns it into a hate crime. In all hate crimes, there must be an underlying crime that has nothing to do with hate.

And that's why Gellar's actions can't rise to the level of a hate crime. If you subtract the hate aspect from her behavior, she was just exhibiting cartoons.