Topic: WorldNetDaily
Janet Folger's May 28 WorldNetDaily column includes a buttload o' scare tactics.
After portraying a handful of blog comments as representative of how all gays feel about the death of Jerry Falwell, Folger invoked "75-year-old grandmother Arlene Elshinnawy" again. As we've detailed, Elshinnawy is not the meek, ordinary grandmother that Folger portrays -- she's an anti-gay, anti-abortion activist in thrall to bullhorn-wielding street preachers. Folger also writes:
However, if two 16-year-old Crystal Lake girls say an unkind word about homosexuals and pass out a few flyers to their classmates, they are in "violation of an Illinois state hate crime statute." They face felony charges and are locked up in juvenile detention while bail is denied.
Via Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, we learn that Folger is not telling the full story about this case. It turns out that the girls were not merely "saying an unkind word about homosexuals and passing out a few flyers to their classmates," as Folger wants you to think:
Two female 16-year-old Crystal Lake South High School students face hate-crime charges after allegedly plastering their high school’s halls and distributing anti-gay fliers directed towards a fellow student in the school’s parking lot.
The actions against their former male friend landed the two girls in juvenile court on May 15, after being arrested by Crystal Lake police on May 11. Both, unnamed due to their ages, also face charges of obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct, and one teen faces an additional charge of resisting a police officer.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi told Windy City Times that despite arguments being made by many locals about the right to free speech, what the two girls did is clearly a hate crime.
They had the intent to alarm and disturb another, and they were successful in that,” Bianchi said. “In alarming and disturbing, they also committed a hate crime. Their words ... were directed against a specific individual of a certain sexual orientation.”
Bianchi would not comment on the exact wording of the flier because it is evidence. However, other sources quote those who have viewed the flier as containing a picture of the male student kissing another male, with the wording “God hates fags.”
And for good measure, Folger also throws in some scare tactics about the federal hate-crimes bill, asserting that its passage will result in "16-year-old girls imprisoned and ministers' graves desecrated. It's Catholic mothers murdered, and the thought police in schools. What do you want the future to look like?"
Of course, that's not true either. In fact, the bill states: "Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."
