For 40 years the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith International have tirelessly embedded hate speech and hate crime laws in western democracies. Yet flickerings of hope continue to appear. As Israel is battered by world criticism, Israel’s PR rep, the Anti-Defamation League, is distracted from focusing as it once did on removing freedom of speech and persecuting free thinkers and Christians. Such slowing of the hate crimes agenda is particularly apparent in the failure—if not refusal—of “the vast majority” of the fifty-five member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to provide hate crimes statistics to ADL or enact new ADL hate laws. (ADL.org, “OSCE States Not Fulfilling Pledge On Hate Crimes”)
Recent events in Canada and England bring hope that even countries deeply committed to hate laws can experience a citizen awakening. They can even potentially repeal some of the legislation and thinking that ADL/B’nai B’rith have so fought to enshrine.
On the American state level, ADL and progressive Jewish groups continue to lobby for pro-homosexual, “anti-bullying” and same sex marriage legislation. Such efforts to forbid “discrimination” against sodomites are massively eroding freedom of speech.
Here are brief descriptions of the good and bad news on the hate law front.
