New Congress, new president, new people in local office. Time for the anti-GLBT attacks to begin as they always do at such times.

Among a red state frenzy to roll back the rights of GLBT people with attention focused on the Transgenmder Community, in South Carolina, Republican lawmakers removed sexual orientation and gender identity from the list of protected categories like race, color, and religion in their proposed hate crimes bill.

While making it open season to bash Gays in South Carolina for no other reason than their sexual orientation and gender identity, the move was made to protect religion from the anticipated onslaught of religious persecution.

One of the go-to arguments against adding sexual orientation and gender identity to any policies or laws is that it would open the litigious flood gates. This was the self-protection argument I had to deal with getting these words into school district policy to protect the students to whom they applied. The claim was that if we made it known that GLBT kids were protected, the GLBT kids and their parents would go on a lawsuit frenzy, something that has not happened in the 11 years those words have been in that district’s policyies.

Three states do not have any hate crime laws, and South Carolina is one of them. The state legislature decided to do something about that, but in the process set up one class of its citizens for physical harm by specifically pointing out they have and will continue to have no protections against hate crimes, so you are free to proceed.

Years ago I was on a Human Rights Committee that was endeavoring to make a city’s Human Rights Ordinance more up to date and inclusive, only to see the committee disbanded and the existing ordinance rescinded by the city council because, rather than add protections for the GLBT citizens in that city, the Council decided to protect no one and blame the lack of protection on the militant Gays.

There was no municipal entity any citizen could turn to for redress of a violation of a human right.

Hate crimes bills enhance penalties for certain crimes if they are committed because of hatred toward a protected category. Robbery is one thing, but it becomes compounded if the perpetrator only chose Gay victims because Gay people don’t count, just as a murder is a murder, but if it was committed only because the person was Gay changes it to something a bit more.

South Carolina’s bill would meet murder and other violent crimes with up to five years more in prison than the sentence for the crime without the hate, three years would be added to the sentencce for stalking and harassment, and a hateful act of vandalism would get an extra year tacked on.

It does not create a list of new crimes, but simply increases the offense and, thereby, the punishment relevant to existing law. For example, an exercise of otherwise constitutional free speech in which a person makes known personal views, becomes a hate crime if part of that speech is shouting slurs as the perpetrator attacks a victim.

With the removal of sexual orientation, gender identity, and age (yes, age) from the list of protected categories, only race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and physical or mental disability are covered.

You can hate and act on that hate of those not on the list.

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With the FBI acknowledging that hate crimes against GLBT people are on the rise, you would think that would be useful in crafting a bill to protect citizens, unless, of course, the lawmakers condone that hatred.

The United States Supreme Court may have decided in 2020 that the word ‘sex’ includes the whole GLBT spectrum, but if you have to write a law that requires people to at least try to be nice to each other, it cannot be taken for granted that the people who need such a bill do not also need its inclusion to be specifically spelled out.

Worried that they could be arrested for hate crimes if they preach about homosexuality, Christian conservatives opposed the more inclusive form of the proposed bill.

Tony Beam of the South Carolina Baptist Convention has said,

“Without proper safeguards, hate crime enhancements open the door to the creation of laws that will chill and threaten religious liberty and stifle the first amendment. We want to be sure there are protections for people of faith who can express their religious beliefs without animus or hatred toward anyone.”

Although this might be effective with some, the reality is that in all areas where hate crime laws already exist and are inclusive, no minister has ever been arrested for preaching.

But this, not being enough, has been joined by the additional moves to consider two bills that would attack transgender young people’s rights, first, by banning transgender girls and women from playing school sports, and, second, criminalizing health care professionals who provide minors with gender-affirming care like puberty blockers or talk therapy. They could face up to 20 years in prison.

Worse, if there are degrees of bigotry, the second bill requires that if any teacher and school employee knows a student is Transgender, they could face 20 years in prison if they don’t out the student to their parents.

Please, young people, get into politics and social justice and get rid of these people we older people grew up with and knew in our youth were jerks and watched in horror as they stumbled into power.