"Hate Crimes" Meets Theater of the Absurd

Though I don't think I've blogged on it, I consider the concept of "hate crimes" odious and almost Orwellian, punishing as it does not so much the action but the thought underlying it (this article from yesterday's ChiTrib also highlights the difficulties in charging blacks with hate crimes against whites - perhaps because there is no white Al Sharpton?)

Now it's once again gone from odious to absurd: a suit on appeal (unsurprisingly, from the crazy 9th Circuit) to the Supreme Court holds that "the words 'natural family,' 'marriage' and 'union of a man and a woman' can be punished as 'hate speech' in government workplaces."

Apparently this whole mess began when a gay/lesbian group of city employees in Oakland sent out an invitation to participate in "National Coming-Out Day;" when asked whether distributing such tripe was legitimate, the city manager responded (in his best ultra-PCese) that "'celebration of the gay/lesbian culture and movement' was part of the city's role to 'celebrate diversity.'" Since when do cities have to celebrate diversity?

A group of traditionally-valued employees which had formed in response and reached out via posted fliers to "people of faith" who opposed attempts to redefine marriage was then accused by a lesbian employee of making her feel "targeted" and "excluded." At this point, the courts issued a "ruling said the words 'natural family' and 'marriage' had 'anti-homosexual import.'" The two women accused of "targeting" and "excluding" this dyke (pardon - is that not PC?) complained that their first amendment rights were being compromised. Which is technically true, unless you may in any unintentional or imagined way insult minorities, gays, or women (white men, Southerners, and military personnel not included).

It's now up to the Supreme Court to decided whether - as the 9th Circuit ruled - an employer's administrative interests (in this case diversity) trumps the employees' free speech. I certainly don't consider that a compelling government interest (which must be shown to limit speech), and I doubt Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito will either. The Court already found "hate speech" constitutional in Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) and though I'm not sure that's really the issue under consideration here, I hope that the Court takes this opportunity to overrule that precedent as well as throw out this latest bit of 9th Circuit BS. On the flip side of the "diversity" coin, I believe they previously found diversity to be a compelling interest in one of the affirmative action cases (Bakkae?) and thus have a certain degree of precedent (one that Ginsberg will no doubt cite in her dissent).

PC nonsense combined with judicial absurdity, topped with an infringement of our free speech: the Left finds a new way to repel me every day.

One final depressing side note: the then-city manager is now the DC School Board president, no doubt injecting such garbage into the District's curriculum, rather than working on things like, say, fixing the broken schools.