Last Updated on June 22, 2023
The Democrat-dominated Michigan legislature is ramming through new “hate crime” legislation that will gut constitutionally-protected free speech rights in the state and will charge Michiganders with hate crimes if they hurt the feelings of so-called sexual minorities and other members of an ever-growing protected class list.
Michiganders will face thousands of dollars in fines and up to a decade in prison for insulting or hurting the feelings of homosexuals, transgenders, and other protected minorities under the new legislation, which has passed the state’s House of Representatives and is moving on to the Michigan Senate. If it passes there, the legislation that guts free speech in the name of combatting “hate crimes” will move on to Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who’s expected to rubber-stamp it.
Among others, the legislation is backed by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who’s been slammed as a Soviet-style tyrant on a number of occasions and dubbed “The Lesbian Terror of Michigan.”
Free speech advocates warn that under the new legislation, which is reportedly intended to shore up Michigan’s hate crime laws to shield the LGBT movement from criticism, Michiganders who criticize the homosexual and transgender movements, including the grooming and castration of small children, will be deemed “hate” criminals.
According to the legislation itself, anyone who “intimidates or harasses another individual” (but only if they’re a member of one of the numerous protected classes listed in the bill) can be charged.
Also according to the legislation, the words “intimidate” and “harass” are defined as “a willful course of conduct” that causes another individual to “feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.”
In other words, under the new rules, a hate crime is constituted by someone’s feelings being hurt.
Michigan and the Democrats aren’t the only ones attacking free speech rights in the name of “hate crime” legislation.
In Florida, under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and his GOP legislature, hate speech legislation that DeSantis signed at a ceremony in Israel expands the state’s jurisdiction over free speech and the free press to never-before-seen heights.
As Stew Peters explained on a broadcast of the Stew Peters Show:
“HB 269 makes it a felony offense in Florida to harass or intimidate someone based on their religion or ethnicity.”
“According to the very people who wrote the bill, this bill would include handing out leaflets or fliers that someone decides are offensive hate speech.”
