The SORs with a vengeance: Part II - the US ‘Hate Crimes’ Legislation

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=1625

[Anglican Mainstream] 4 May 2007--In this second of two parts on the pending US Hate Crimes Legislation, I would like to highlight material from Dr Rob Gagnon’s most recent articles from his website. The first, ‘Let the “Sexual Orientation Hate” Bill Pass and Invite Your Own Oppression’, is particularly applicable to our own increasingly worrying situation in the UK in terms of larger cultural developments and what is happening in the legal, educational, professional and corporate worlds. The second, ‘An Exchange with a Homosexual Man Upset with my Hate Crimes Article’, fleshes out important aspects of how this issue impacts daily life in the ubiquitous-but-often-invisible realm where culture and religion intersect, overlap, agree or disagree. Indeed, the inevitable and not insignificant interplay between culture and religion turned out to be one of the primary blindspots of evangelicals in the UK in relation to the SORs. Evangelicals seemed almost ludicrously ignorant of the impossibility of separating the two realms - culture and religion - and keeping both viable and vibrant; if not in the short term, then in the long, such an approach is naive, foolish and ultimately futile.