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Michigan Dems push heavy fines and prison time for making people FEEL uncomfortable with new bill

June 22, 2023 | | Print Article

On Tuesday, the Michigan State House passed a “hate crime” law that conservatives worry would make it easy for prosecutors to pummel dissidents with “hate crime” charges.

“The proposed legislation, HB 4474, would amend the state’s Ethnic Intimidation Act of 1988 in order to consider it a hate crime if a person is accused of causing ‘severe mental anguish’ to another individual by means of perceived verbal intimidation or harassment,” according to The Epoch Times.

“The amendment defines the words intimidate or harass as a ‘willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested,'” the outlet reported Tuesday.

Conservatives worry this law could easily be abused by malicious prosecutors to target anyone who dares to speak out against the status quo.

“Words are malleable. They can be redefined by whoever is in power,” attorney David Kallman of the pro-liberty Great Lakes Justice Center (GLJC) told the Times.

“Under the proposed statute, ‘intimidate and harass’ can mean whatever the victim, or the authorities, want them to mean. The focus is on how the victim feels rather than on a clearly defined criminal act. This is a ridiculously vague and subjective standard,” he warned.

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“The absence of intent makes no difference under this law. You are still guilty of the crime because the victim felt uncomfortable. The bill will lead to the prosecution of conservatives, pastors, and parents attending a school board meeting for simply expressing their opposition to the liberal agenda,” Kallman continued.

Someone convicted under the law could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and fined up to $10,000. Either that or they could be granted an alternative sentence.

“An alternative sentence may include an order requiring the offender to complete a period of community service intended to enhance the offender’s understanding of the impact of the offense upon the victim and wider community,” the law reads.

“Community service under this subdivision must be performed with the consent of—and in support of—the community targeted in the violation,” it continues.

Kallman didn’t care for this provision.

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“This option amounts to being sentenced to a Soviet-style dissident reeducation camp,” he told the Times.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Noah Arbit, has pushed back concerns about the bill by claiming he isn’t trying to criminalize so-called “hate.”

“We are not criminalizing hate. We are criminalizing hate when it dovetails with a criminal act,” he reportedly testified during a June 6th hearing.

But GLJC founder William Wagner, a law professor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney, wasn’t convinced. In written testimony submitted to the Michigan House, he wrote, “The proposed speech law is wholly inconsistent with fundamental principles of constitutional good governance under the rule of law.”

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Speaking with the Times, he doubled down on this view.

“Wagner [said] that fear of prosecution would ‘chill’ free speech and result in ‘self-censorship’ by people who may express the belief that sex is based on biology and determined by a person’s chromosomes, and that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman,” according to the Times.

“Make no mistake about it: those with an anti-Christian agenda will wield a weapon capable of extinguishing Christian expression in the state of Michigan,” he said in his own words.

He had a point, in that people are already being censored for speaking the truth about biology and marriage. Indeed, prior to Elon Musk taking over Twitter, users used to be censored — and sometimes even banned — all the time for doing such:

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Now imagine people being charged criminally for saying that a man is a man and a woman is a woman.

Yet despite these valid concerns, three state Republicans reportedly crossed the aisle this week to vote with their Democrat comrades.

The bill now heads to the Michigan Senate, where it’s expected to pass, after which radically far-left Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will no doubt sign it into law.

Vivek Saxena
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