The Political Whore

By Eric Snider
cross-posted from The Daily Loaf

“The whole purpose of the law is to stifle speech against people who speak against the deviant [gay] lifestyle.” —Bill Keller

The first and second installments of The Devi’s Advocate with Bill Keller drew lots of traffic and comments. Welcome to our third Q&A. I’ll be playing the role of Devil’s Advocate.

One of our most controversial religious figures, Pinellas-based Bill Keller is known for his incendiary rhetoric and unbending view of Bible-based morality. He believes homosexuality is an abomination, abortion is murder and … you can pretty much guess the rest. Click here for a bit more detail on Keller’s ministry.

Today’s Topic: The U.S. Congress is in the process of expanding Hate Crimes laws to include “sexual orientation,” “gender” and “gender identity” to federally protected classes that already include race, religion, color or national origin. Bill Keller doesn’t like this at all.

The Devil’s Advocate: By opposing the addition of gender identity to the existing hate crimes bill, does that mean you’re OK with crimes against gays?

Bill Keller: Absolutely not. I’m not in favor of any hate crimes legislation. If there’s an existing crime statute on the books, you’re going to be punished. If you commit a crime against one of the protected groups, what are you going to get? Three life sentences? It’s redundant.

So why are you concerned about adding gender identity to the law?

Let me tell you how this is going to morph: People who put these laws together say it isn’t there intention, but activists groups, the Perez Hiltons, gay activist associations will go out and make the case that the Bill Kellers are inciting people to violence against homosexuals when there’s no evidence of that happening. I don’t say this out of paranoia. It’s happened in Canada and Sweden and other places where these laws exist. In Canada, three pastors are in jail for this very thing.

So you feel as if you’ll be the target of a crusade by gay activists?

Yes. Let me give you an example of a great analogy from my life. CAIR (Council on Arab-American Relations) goes after any media personality that dares to speak out against Islam when, according to the Bible, it’s a false religion.

They said what I was doing was hate speech and inciting violence against Muslims. Eventually CBS [which aired his call in TV show Live Prayer with Bill Keller] gave me the option to stop talking about Islam or they would take my program off the air. There was no way I was going to let them censor me so the show went off the air. So the analogy is on point: If I speak out against homosexuality as it says in the Bible, I’m inciting violence against them, and there’s no proof of that.

I don’t think your analogy works at all. CAIR used their right to speech as a means to pressure an organization, CBS, to take away that avenue of your speech. That sounds like freedom of speech at work. Were you jailed for hate crimes when speaking out against Muslims?

Muslims aren’t a protected group.

Yes they are. The Hate Crimes legislation includes religion. I know you claim that Islam is not a religion but most everyone accepts it as such — certainly with regard to hate crimes laws.

Muslims can say I used hate speech, but everything they said was a lie.

They might argue that you disavowing Islam as a religion is a lie. It seems like two sides, each with the power of free speech, squared off, and in this case CAIR won out. So why, if you weren’t charged with a hate crime when you spoke out against Islam, do you think you’ll fall victim to Hate Crimes laws for speaking negatively about gays?

Here’s the point: Under this new legislation, homosexual groups will be make allegations against people like me and I could be brought into the legal system. The law is designed to scare people form speaking out against homosexuality.

Do you think it will actually have the effect of anti-gay religious leaders being hesitant to speak out?

Sure, we already have a generation of gutless pastors. It’s going to scare the daylights out of those guys.

So this is good news for the gay community.

Absolutely. The whole purpose of the law is to stifle speech against people who speak against their deviant lifestyle.

All right!

Once this law is on the books, mark my words, within 12 months, I’m going to find myself in a legal situation.

It would have to be a criminal legal situation, right?

Yes. I’m interested in seeing how far the courts are going to go in upholding this law.

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