Having Freedom of Conscience means the State cannot outlaw Hate Crimes, because it cannot make law based on motivations.
Otherwise, the State gets into the business of determining what motivations are acceptible.
And frankly no State can be trusted with that power.
(Much like no State can be trusted with the power of indefinite pre-trial detention, as I discussed early on in No, Just No: Department Of Justice Goes For Broke.)
(And like no State can be trusted with the power to censor any poliical speech.)
It also makes law enforcement absurd.
Letting the State outlaw particular motivations creates situations where the law is impossible to enforce reasonably.
For example, it’s illegal for a landlord to refuse to rent to someone because of their race. Fine, all nice and liberal; most folks really have no problem with that.
But it’s legal for a landlord to refuse to rent to someone because they just don’t like them, or think they look shifty, or they support a different sports team or any number of other reasons that are equally stupid.
So, all a racist landlord has to do to stay on the right side of the law is to keep their mouth shut about race and say something vague about not liking a prospective tenant’s shoes.
Boom: all legal again.
That’s no way to run a country.
The law, to be worth having, needs to be clear and comprehensible. (It also needs to be just, but that’s a whole other topic.)
And for that, an action needs to be either legal or illegal of itself without having to contemplate the motivation behind it.
And who should get to choose acceptible motives?
The laws are made by people: how many people would you really trust to decide what you can say, or what reasons you’re allowed to base decisions on?
One; myself, and no one else.
And if you’re over the age of around 12, then your answer should be the same.
Once a State starts down these paths, there’s generally no way short of revolution to stop it.
And creating a system that requires its own destruction in order to get it back on course is just foolish.
