FRESH
HOT HATE

While the passing into law of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was generally met with a blend of applause and standard American indifference, four Michigan zealots are concerned the prevention of anti-gay crime interferes with their God-given right to violently hate gays. So outraged are they by the inconvenience, in fact, that they’ve filed a federal suit.

Filed by Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan’s Thomas More Law Center on behalf of the American Family Association and three equally wing-nutty pastors, the suit alleges the Hate Crimes Act gives homosexuals legal protections that make them “more equal than others.” Furthermore, the plaintiffs are concerned that the laws equate their “deeply held religious beliefs” with racism and will stymie their “freedom of speech, expressive association and free exercise” of those beliefs. The act itself clearly states that it in no way will infringe on freedom of speech or freedom of expression laws.

In addition to getting its allegations wrong, the suit also dismisses the notion that Matthew Shepard’s having been tied to a fence and beaten to death in 1998 had anything to do with his homosexuality.

by SCOTT SAXON