A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.
Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”
But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”
Stealing books alone isn’t a hate crime.
Targeting specific books because you hate a specific group of people, well maybe there’s no hate crime enhancer for theft. But it’s motivated by hate, it’s a hate crime.
I upvoted this vs. the other comment (yikes). I’m not disagreeing that this is hate motivated and it’s a crime… so yah… technically a “hate crime” but it doesn’t fit the legal definition and yah there should be consequences, but it’s not shooting up a gay bar. My intent wasn’t to minimize the hate, but to discuss how to push back against it for what it is…
“Hate crime” is a specific legal term. While unfortunate, the parent commenter is right; stealing books even when motivated by hate is not legally considered a hate crime.
Under federal law, only actions leading to bodily injury or attempts thereof can qualify as hate crimes.
Under Kentucky law (KRS 532.031), criminal mischief is only considered a hate crime if the amount of damage exceeds $500. While the total cost might exceed that, this is counted on a per-offender basis.
Don’t get me wrong, it definitely should be considered a hate crime and the legislature should change the law to define this action as a hate crime (even if it is a relatively minor one), but under the current law, it isn’t. It’s merely criminal mischief in the second degree.
If I were a prosecutor I would be trying to throw the book at these morons though.
The question I have is whether or not it can be considered censorship by the fact that they’re stealing books related to a specific minority group/topic with the intent to censor information about that group.
I think there’s a better case to be made there for federal charges.
yeah I hear you, I was just pointing out that it’s motivated by hate. And if it was any sort of violent crime it would have a hate crime enhancer on it.
It’s not direct harm, but the intention is to erase queer lives and queer media, that queer people rely on to find their reflection in. Especially if they grow up places where they don’t get exposure to other folks like themselves.
It’s more than theft. Because intentions matter. But, there’s also no legal framework for the prosecution.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think there needs to be an enhancement of some sort that recognises an offence, even if minor, was motivated by hate.
Right now, I associate the words “hate crime” with serious criminal behaviour that results in bodily harm or threats to personal safety or destruction of large amounts of property. I think it might need to stay that way to avoid watering down the term.
Rather, there should probably be a new category called something like “hateful anti-social behaviour” to refer to minor transgressions like stealing the LGBTQ books or things like calling all the LGBTQ people you encounter slurs and other forms of harassment.
I hear you. And honestly we need to be better about using the hate crime enhancer for violent crimes generally.
But, I’d prefer to live in a society that doesn’t tolerate hateful criminal behavior. If someone wants to call me a trans slur that sucks, but if someone spray painted hateful slurs on my property, I’d like that to be prosecuted with a more serious consequence than simple vandalism.
And, I have no idea how to frame it so that more violent offenses aren’t watered down. But, as I mentioned at the outset, we don’t use the enhancer often enough as it is. And maybe if we used it for less violent offenses, with smaller enhancers, we’d normalize using it more generally.
There it is. Thanks for the sanity check. I swear people go off half cocked if you aren’t 100% hive minding. The book theft is absolutely motivated by hatred, intolerance and probably repression against LGBTQ in some misguided attempt to Save the Children TM. I 100% agree they are looking to cause ignorance and indirectly that could lead to a person not getting information that could help them, but it’s not permanent damage and certainly caused no direct harm.
I hear you but there’s not a court in the land that would uphold book theft as a hate crime. And there are some heinous hate crimes that it would minimize by association (think eye rolling). In my town a guy got nearly destroyed by some drunk bar bros. His face was permanently broken up, he quit work at a friend’s place and as far as I know, left the country. That’s real hate with real impact And I could get behind considerjng targeted shit like this as hate-motivated crime, but then we need some sort of impact level and I have a feeling the fundies would turn it around to say they are being “hate crimed” when there’s a pride parade or some other nonsense…
Hate-by-proxy?