Hate-Filled Legislation

by Christopher G. Adamo

As the Wyoming Legislature convenes its 2003 session, the counterculture crowd is once again working to impose thought control law as it has attempted since 1994. This year's abomination to both reason and the First Amendment is innocuously entitled “Misdemeanor Penalty Enhancements,” a less threatening label than the original 1994 outrage, which was entitled “Malicious Harassment.”

From the beginning, the menace of “hate crimes” legislation has been rife with fraud and deception, and this year's effort is no different. But although the title of each successive attack on free speech and expression has been toned down from the previous one, in hopes of disguising the threat it represents, the content and underlying purpose remain exactly the same, and that is to subjugate the citizenry to the twisted precepts of   “political correctness.”

No one should ever forget the phony “hate crime”, perpetrated just one week prior to the start of the 1998 legislative session, in which an envelope containing a printout of a swastika was placed under the door of a Cheyenne Synagogue, to be delivered to the Governor's desk that same afternoon by a suspiciously well organized cadre of “hate crimes” legislation advocates (and there was another envelope, deposited under the door of the legislative chamber on opening day, in case some recalcitrant legislators still didn't get it). Nor should anybody forget the shameless grandstanding that took place in October of that year, when the murder of Matthew Shepard became an excuse for liberals to accuse and indict all of the good people of Wyoming who reject their bankrupt philosophies. Somewhat inconveniently for those who believe that justice cannot be served without the empowerment of the “thought police”, Shepard's murderers were convicted and sentenced to life-imprisonment without the benefit of “hate crimes” legislation.

This year, those tolerant and open-minded elitists on the left hope to demagogue another situation in service to their cause. A kooky “religious” organization, espousing “white supremacy” and going by the name of “World Church of the Creator”, relocated its headquarters from Illinois to Riverton, Wyoming. But once again, old-fashioned justice is being done without the dividing and categorizing of citizens as promoted by liberals. Matt Hale, leader of the organization, has been charged and, if convicted, faces up to thirty years of imprisonment, not for expressing insensitivity or offending an enlightened (read: thin skinned) liberal, but for conspiring to murder a judge.

State Senator Jayne Mockler (D-Cheyenne) has openly expressed hopes of fanning the flames of outrage against Hale's organization into public support for “hate crimes” legislation. Furthermore, she claims that minorities ought to join with the largely pro-homosexual advocacy of previous “hate crimes” measures, as a supposed guarantee of their protection from such extremism.

But in another comment, Mockler clearly “tipped her hand.” With the pious arrogance of a Hollywood leftist, she suggested that Wyomingites project an image that says, “All they want is a perfectly white, Christian straight society.” On the contrary, the perception that outsiders have of Wyoming is of a place where all individuals can expect to be equally treated, and thus equally protected by a law that places no one either below or above it. Admittedly, certain sectors of America's counterculture find that concept abhorrent.

Clearly, it is not some epidemic of race-related brutality that concerns her. Nor is it that violent crimes go unpunished in Wyoming (as Shepard's murderers, doing life sentences at the state penitentiary, can attest). Rather, it is the very culture and heritage of the Equality State that she regards as unacceptably offensive. So, in typical liberal fashion, she intends to warp and distort that culture to her liking through the iron fist of government.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of this situation is that some, such as the Anti-Defamation League, would use the Jewish Holocaust as an argument in favor of “hate crimes” legislation. But although anti-Semitism has been around since the days of Ishmael, the indescribable horrors of concentration camps didn't happen at the hands of a few wacky fanatics or skulking thugs. On the contrary, only when a nation's government had become so powerful and intrusive that it alone could dictate and enforce its own concept of right, wrong, and conscience, did the genocide of innocent Jews become an inevitability. And it is that very power to control, to suppress, and ultimately to destroy, that the “hate crimes” legislation advocates in Wyoming government are seeking to consolidate for themselves.

Growing up during the turbulent decades of the ‘60's and ‘70's, Christopher  Adamo saw, to his dismay, the nation's moral foundations being destroyed  before his very eyes. But even then he was a staunch Conservative at heart,  and rejected outright the tenets of America's counterculture revolution.

 After a hitch in the Air Force, where he specialized in airborne  electro- optical systems, he pursued a career in the field of aerospace,  working for major defense contractors in California, Florida, and Colorado. But his career plans abruptly changed during the industry-wide downsizing that followed the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Presently he is working in the field of industrial instrumentation in the state of Wyoming. Concurrently, he has become involved in that state's political process, attending state GOP conventions as a delegate, and serving as a member of the Wyoming Republican Central Committee. He has also aided in the candidacies of local legislators and state senators, as well as a U.S. Senator and Congresswoman.

From 1993 to 1996, he edited and wrote for “The Wyoming Christian”, the state newsletter for Christian Coalition of Wyoming. During that period, he developed an acute awareness of the harm being done to Conservatism by liberal activists within the Republican Party as well as the Democrats. This remains a favorite theme of his articles, which now appear as a regular feature on GOPUSA.