Two disparate Hoosier takes on the subject of hate crimes

In the wake of the Indiana legislature doing the right thing and putting the kibosh on the bill that would have spelled out a bunch of demographic classifications that would have made for additional punishment when one citizen harmed or killed another, there has, as was going to be inevitable, backlash from the Left.

Tom Linebarger, CEO of Cummins, a Fortune 200 maker of engines, gen sets, turbochargers and other power-generation products, has weighed in, along with the CEOs of Salesforce, Lily,  Old National Bank, Simon, IU Health, and the NCAA:

Cummins Chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger is among 22 leaders in Indiana asking Statehouse legislators to add protected classes back to Senate Bill 12, which is a hate crimes bill being considered this session.

The Indiana Senate passed the bill last week, but removed specific protections for race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation and age.

In the letter, which was also signed by David A Ricks, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly, Bob Stutz, CEO for Salesforce and Bob Jones, chairman and CEO of Old National Bancorp, the leaders said “the bill in its current form is unacceptable, unenforceable and harmful to the state’s economy.”

The letter asks that the bill be strengthened by adding the classes back in the legislation to establish a strong bias crimes law in Indiana. Indiana is one of only five states without a hate crimes law.

Also signing the letter were David Simon, chairman of Simon Property Group, Gail K. Boudreaux, president and CEO of Anthem, Dennis Murphy, president and CEO of Indiana University Health, Jeff Smulyan, chairman of Emmis Communications Corp. and Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA.

Now, for the sensible viewpoint, put forth in a Resurgent piece from last September by Peter Heck, who teaches high school social studies in Kokomo, Indiana and used to host a radio talk show, and who contributes regularly to The Resurgent.

I'm going to paste the entire piece, since his argument is so cogent and important:

There’s a situation going down in my home state of Indiana that provides a good learning opportunity for people of sound mind around the country. For years, left-leaning social activists have been attempting to push “hate crimes”legislation through Indiana’s part-time legislature and onto the Governor’s desk. To this point it hasn’t happened, largely because for well over a decade we haven’t had a Governor who would have been silly enough to sign it.

In late July, however, vandals scrawled Nazi graffiti on the walls of a Jewish synagogue in an Indianapolis suburb and everything changed. The state’s Republican Governor, Eric Holcomb, almost immediately issued a call for lawmakers to rectify this grievous act by enacting a new statewide “hate crimes” or “bias crimes” law. Left-leaning media, including the state’s largest newspaper The Indianapolis Star that has been editorializing in favor of this action for years, has amplified Holcomb’s request. Despite supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature, it is likely that the upcoming session will see Republicans pass a law that they once understood was unnecessary at best, dangerous at worst.

Here’s why I say that:

1. Hate crimes laws are, despite having been enacted in a vast majority of states, objectively unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution demands equal protection under the law for all citizens. That means the punishment inflicted on a criminal who kills me is not to be gentler nor harsher than if that criminal killed you. To enhance the penalty for killing one class of people is to provide them more protection under the law, not equal protection.
2. Hate crimes laws are, despite their fanfare and appeals to emotion, completely unnecessary and in many ways harmful to justice. Take Indiana as but one example. Indiana law already permits a judge to take into consideration the personal characteristics of a victim that motivated a crime, and then enhance a penalty accordingly. Hate Crimes laws actually limit the ability of a judge to do this. For instance, if an old man wearing a veteran’s cap was assaulted because of his service in the military, an Indiana judge today could enhance the penalty for the attacker due to the heinous circumstances of his motivation to commit the crime. But “military service” is not a protected characteristic under Holcomb’s proposed hate crimes law; thus, if enacted, certain groups of victims of these bias crimes would be rendered vulnerable because they failed to make the government’s list of favorites.

Given these realities, plus the inconvenient truth that no hate crime statute would have prevented the Nazi graffiti at that synagogue, we can fairly surmise that this entire push is – like most progressive causes – about symbolism, not substance. It’s pandering, political grandstanding at its finest. Which is one reason why it is so depressing that Christians, who have been commanded by Christ to exercise discernment in ways the world does not, fall for this –particularly when there is often a nefarious element to these legal campaigns that threatens people of faith.

It is no secret that the loudest promoters of hate crimes laws are often the same social activists who champion so-called “non-discrimination” laws that include their favorite five words: “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Once codified, those laws don’t do anything to prevent discrimination, but they do provide a legal method through which progressives can harass, bully, financially intimidate, and exact debilitating punitive fines and punishments on people whose conscience offends their agenda.

When states or municipalities balk at adding those words to discrimination statutes in order to prevent that kind of harassment (like what Jack Phillips at Masterpiece Cakeshop is unconscionably having to endure in Colorado), activists slip them into the law code through channels like hate crimes bills. Codified as a legal “class” in one section of the law, it is judicially predictable to see it extrapolated outward to others – like non-discrimination.

It’s the camel nose under the tent, all for no moral or legal good whatsoever. Yet in Indiana, the presidents of six of the state’s leading Christian universities and colleges – The University of Notre Dame, Indiana Wesleyan University, Anderson University, Grace College and Seminary, St. Mary’s College, University of Saint Francis – all signed a letter supporting Governor Holcomb’s foolish appeal. 

Christian schools whose leadership calls to limit and deny justice, while providing a springboard to government harassment and censure of Christian citizens. Righteous discernment indeed.

This is what we are up against. All those corporations, colleges and universities have fallen in on the absolutely wrong side of an issue with grave implications for basic human freedom.

Interestingly, there appeared a piece today at National Review by Jim Geraghty that says that survey data bear out that people are far more interested in whether these companies' products have value to them than how woke the companies are:

A few oddities arose in a newly released survey of consumers and their views of companies and politics. The survey asked, “How appropriate is it for a corporation to take a position on each of the following issues?” As one might expect, more than 90 percent of respondents approved of companies taking a position on less controversial topics like “hiring and training U.S. military veterans” and “fair labor standards for workers.”

Coming in dead last? “Against President Trump,” at 47 percent — behind “legalization of marijuana” at 49 percent, “transgender issues” at 58 percent.

The survey asked, “If (company) were a person, do you think it would be a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent?” Unsurprisingly, Nike was the company scored most likely to be a Democrat. But the perception of other companies is surprising, considering what those companies have actually done.

Dick’s Sporting Goods scored just barely on the Republican side, which is surprising considering the company’s post-Parkland stance on gun gales (and resulting drop in earnings). Similarly, Delta Airlines scored as a Republican company, which is a little bit surprising considering the short-lived brouhaha over their quickly forgotten dropped discount for NRA members (that apparently only 13 people used anyway).

General Motors scored on the Republican side, which suggests the entirety of the bailout and “Government Motors” debate has been forgotten by the public. And the company that ranked the second most “Republican” in responses was the department store Nordstrom . . .  which stands out as a company specifically denounced by President Trump for dropping his daughter’s line of luxury apparel. (Ivanka Trump closed up her fashion brand last year.)

The company perceived to be most “Republican” is the bank- and financial- services company J.P. Morgan Chase. Most years, the company’s employees donate slightly more to Democrats than Republicans. In 2012, Obama called them “one of the best-managed banks there is.” Asked about his political views earlier this year, CEO Jamie Dimon said, “My heart is Democratic, but my brain is kind of Republican.”

Facebook is perceived as the second-most Democratic company, despite a considerable number of online activist Democrats believing that the company let Russia manipulate the election through various ads. Starbucks is fourth-most Democratic, which isn’t enormously surprising, but the company has certainly attracted the ire of progressive activists over the years.

Target is considered a Democratic company, Walmart is considered a Republican company; this probably has to do with the short-lived “transgender bathroom” policy announcement of 2016. Beyond that, Target’s policies aren’t all that distinguishable from Walmart’s. There is one dollar’s worth of difference in the two companies’ minimum wages. Both companies stand accused of using contractors who hire undocumented immigrants and pay them a pittance, and Target settled a class-action discrimination lawsuit last year.

The authors of the analysis of the survey declare, “There is reward for companies that take action on political and social issues, and a penalty for inaction.” But I think the evidence points to the opposite conclusion. I think the clearer lesson is that most consumers quickly forget about most of these controversies that kick up like a summer thunderstorm – they appear quickly, suddenly get very intense, and then disappear quickly, and almost everyone forgets about them. Despite all the loud talk of boycotts against Starbucks, Nike, and Facebook, most people just want to drink coffee, wear sneakers, and see which high-school classmates got fat.

The perception of a company’s politics often has only a nominal connection to what the company actually does. State Street, the financial-services company that paid for and positioned “Fearless Girl,” the statue of a young woman challenging Wall Street’s “Charging Bull,” agreed to pay $5 million in a settlement over allegations that it paid female employees less than their male counterparts.

A lot of people, led by a far-too-credulous media that is eager for clicks and controversy, are gullible when it comes to corporate image-shaping and public relations. Nike figured out how to get Americans to stop worrying about sweatshops. Patagonia realized its supply chain had been profiting off human trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation.

Outspoken progressive activism is the quickest and easiest way to buy your way back into the good graces of certain corners of society. Witness Michael Cohen this week, as well as James Comey’s reinventing himself from the favorite election scapegoat of many Democrats to a leader of #TheResistance.

Which is not to say we can ignore all this woke activism. For one thing, the social-justice jackboots are very loud and persistent.

It would be folly to sit idly by and cede the floor to them.