U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: Whites and ministers will not be protected by his proposed Hate Crimes legislation

Free Republic reported today that U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, in his testimony before the Senate said that ministers and whites are not covered by the Justice Department's hate crimes legislation. According to Free Republic, Senator Jeff Sessions presented this hypothetical situation to Holder, "Sessions presents a hypothetical where a minister gives a sermon, quotes the Bible about homosexuality and is thereafter attacked by a gay activist because of what the minister said about his religious beliefs and what scripture says about homosexuality."

In response, Holder made this statement in his testimony before the Senate, “Well the statute would not necessarily cover that. On the other hand, I think the concern that actually has been expressed is if the action was reversed. . . . We are talking about, if in fact the person, we are talking about crimes that have a historic basis. Groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of their skin color, sexual orientation, that is what this legislation is designed to cover. The fact that someone might strike somebody as a result of pure speech, again, . . . we don’t have the indication that somebody was motivated to strike at somebody because they were in one of these protected classes. That would not be covered by the statute.”

Not surprising, but Holder said on May 14 that the hate-crimes measure would not be a problem for ministers.