America is on the verge of making it illegal to say anything nasty about homosexuals, Jews, blacks and women. Hate speech, even when it falls far short of any direct incitement to violence, is about to be criminalised. Freedom of speech, enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, will be gone the way of the dodo. The House of Representatives approved at the end of April, and has since passed to the Senate, a bill backed by Barack Obama’s White House to classify as ‘hate crimes’ those attacks based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability. Now, there already was a federal statute going back to the 1960s proscribing hate crimes based on race, colour, religious or ethic origin, but prosecutors could only invoke this law if the victim was engaged in a federally protected activity, like going to school or praying in church. No more, if the Senate agrees with the House, which it surely will. Suppose two fellows in a bar see another fellow come in, are overheard stigmatising the man as a homosexual and are then later convicted of beating him up. They not only get sentenced for inflicting grievous bodily harm, they get an ‘enhancement’ – several more years behind bars – for committing a hate crime.

The gay lobby has been pushing for just such a hate crime law ever since Matthew Shepard got beaten to death in 1998 by two roofers outside Laramie, Wyoming. It’s actually somewhat unclear whether the roofers, high on methamphetine at the time, specifically murdered Shepard because he was gay.

The problem with the Hate Crimes Act is that it creates a thought crime

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