Because you can't make this stuff up.

I get the rest of it. The Mormonphobia is something new. Or maybe not considering the anti-gay bashing stems from its bowels.

"SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake County has joined a handful of other Utah cities and counties urging state lawmakers to pass stricter hate crimes laws.

The County Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday urging the Utah Legislature to beef up laws to address crimes that target people because of their race, religion or sexual orientation.

County Councilman Arlyn Bradshaw, who helped draft an initial version of the resolution, spoke of how the June 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead affected him personally. Bradshaw is openly gay.

"I ugly cried when I heard about it," he said. "I still get emotional thinking about it."

Bradshaw also recalled an incident a year earlier in his neighborhood when two men walking home from a Christmas party were attacked by some men shouting anti-gay slurs.

Bradshaw, a Democrat, and Republican Councilman Michael Jensen sponsored the resolution — but a second version of the resolution was adopted after Councilman Richard Snelgrove offered a more detailed draft with a more expansive list of religious groups known to be targeted, including Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Christians and others.

"I'd like to see less hate in our community," Snelgrove said. "Less racism. Less homophobia. Less Islamophobia. Less Mormonphobia. Less anti-Semitism. It's just not right to have in our community.""

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900007211/salt-lake-county-joins-movement-to-sharpen-utah-hate-crime-laws.html

So now LD$ Inc. can accuse RfM of "mormonphobia".
Let the persecution begin !

Well, to be honest, everybody has their phobias. When it comes to religion, probably only Evangelicals and JWs would be below Mormons on my list of favorite religious people (as a group).

That said, there still should be stronger penalties for crimes committed against people, strictly because of your phobia. That goes for Mormonphobia too. And it IS a thing. I'd be as furious about someone attacking any of my family members because of their religion as I would be about someone attacking people because they're black or gay or Muslim.

Now punching their lights out because they yell homophobic slurs at people due to the fact that they are mormon... that's a different story.

This sort of thing was predicted when people advocated for hate crime laws to protect LGBQ2 people. It is pernicious.

I know it is unpopular to be against hate crime laws. I am. The following is simplistic, I know, but true: the guy who gets punched in the head for wearing the wrong hockey jersey and the guy who gets punched in the head for wearing his nails polished were both assaulted equally.

Categorizing people into groups and creating special laws just for them is not a good place to start to address hate etc. How many groups should we create? Based on what criteria?

This is no joke: there are bankers and Wall Street types already talking about hate crimes against them, as bankers, financiers rich people. Imagine this black mirror opening to place where it is illegal to say that you hate the fucking financiers who just raided your father’s pension. That’s where this is headed, where it is a crime to hate those who have power over you.


In related news: Brazil is following France down the rabbit hole of government internet censorship, all in the name of heroically cleaning up “fake news”. Guess what news will be considered fake?

SJW types, while well intentioned, never stopped to think that in the end it will be the powerful who will be protected via censorship and protected from our hatred for them.

Human, slippery-slope looker-outer

Speaking slippery-slopely, there's also slippery sloppily:

This is Salt Lake County, not Salt Lake City. I know it doesn't change the tenor of the conversation, but precision ought always to be maintained.

What’s wrong with thought crime laws?

In the current climate there's also the bias directed by some cops against minority groups - just for looking the wrong way - or being different.

What laws are there to protect innocent black men or women from being shot while reaching for their wallet inside their car because a certain cop doesn't like their "look?"

It seems the cops have been getting away with plenty of hate crimes lately and the law has been on their side overall given the number of acquittals on their behalf. Despite video tape and body cam evidence to the contrary showing the victim was defenseless and unable to do anything in self-defense.
Without human rights laws and intervention there would be more mayhem than there already is. There is always going to be the potential for the 'slippery slope' as in where do we go from here mentality. But without laws on the books to punish those who break them there would be no civic order or a sense of justice in trying to obtain a measure of peace for crime victims.

Seems to be a lot of that in Utah.

Hate crimes have always covered religion. There wouldn't be anything special about this one, unless only the named religions are covered.

Jews,Muslims and Sikhs seem most commonly attacked in this country. I am not aware of many anti Mormon hate crimes, but if they exist, they should be addressed as well.

Why not make it a hate crime to tell missionaries that you reject their message and they should stop hounding people?

I would appreciate it I they included Mormons kicking their gay kids out of the house as a hate crime.

Also construed as child abuse, extreme neglect. If such laws exist on the books, they are not enforced.

so for me to be protected by the law...I need to be a member of SOME religious group??

what about nonmormon-phobia...because there is a lot of that in UT

I would think that someone targeted specifically for being atheist or not a member of the dominant religious group would probably qualify for protection under a hate crimes statute.

Ha ha!

We have all the laws necessary to deal with all of social woes. We just need to use them. Every new law creates a class of victims and perpetrators. Just new territory for lawyers to cash in on. A new wedge. A new angle. Why can’t we all just get along, to quote a man named Rodney...

About as reasonable as islamaphobia. Now where is my pink kitty hat?
Really?

I have moronphobia, and Abrahamophobia as well. I slam Islam, judge Judaism and criticize Christianity.

Hate crime laws can't subvert the first amendment. However they
work by attaching extra punishment to crimes when "hate" is
involved. "Hate," of course, is in the view of the prosecutor.

For example if you walk across the street between intersections
that could be jaywalking--illegal--and you could get a ticket for
it. However, if you walk across the street between intersections
and you happen to have a copy of "Huckleberry Finn" in your
backpack, then that could increase your fine because you were
doing it while transporting a book with racial epithets.

Religions want to put themselves above all criticism. They have no right whatsoever to do this, of course, but they still try. They demand "respect", which they define as a synonym for deference. I call these blasphemy laws, pure and simple.

I have Abrahamophobia. I slam Islam, judge Judaism and criticize Christianity.

I have SaltLakeOpoly.