NEWS STORY: Clinton: There’s no hiding from the `poison’ of hate

c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ To the Rev. Samuel Kyles, hate is not a ghost _ it’s the word”nigger”splashed on the charred walls of a burned black church. For Tammie Schnitzer, it’s the splinters of glass from the windows broken because she is Jewish. That’s why Kyles and Schnitzer came to Washington on […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ To the Rev. Samuel Kyles, hate is not a ghost _ it’s the word”nigger”splashed on the charred walls of a burned black church. For Tammie Schnitzer, it’s the splinters of glass from the windows broken because she is Jewish.

That’s why Kyles and Schnitzer came to Washington on Monday (Nov. 10) to join President Clinton in a one-day White House Conference on Hate Crimes aimed at assessing the scope of the problem.”Anybody who thinks that in the world of today or tomorrow he or she can hide from the poison that we see in various places in our country is living in a dream world,”Clinton told the conferees.


At the session, Clinton also endorsed a proposal _ co-sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa. _ that would expand groups protected by current hate crime legislation to include homosexuals, people with disabilities and women.

Federal hate crime laws now include crimes committed against people because of their race, religion, color or national origin.”One of America’s greatest challenges and the greatest opportunities is conquering the forces of hatred and division that still exist in our society,”Clinton said.”Every year, thousands of Americans are victims of hate crimes, and many more such crimes go unreported. These crimes create a climate of tension and fear, tearing at the very fabric of community life,”he said.

The conference brought together some 350 religious leaders, educators, law enforcement officials and politicians as well as victims of hate crimes.

In a report to the conference, the Rev. Troy Perry, moderator of the 42,000-member, predominately gay Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, said that 7 percent of churches in his denomination have been targets of arson or fire-bombing over the past three decades.”Based upon our internal research, we believe this to be a higher figure than for any other institution _ religious, political or civic _ in American society,”Perry said.

Most of those attacks, he said, have”`flown beneath the radar’ of public perception”and failed to gain the attention of the public.”We believe the fact that this ongoing wave of hate crimes against our churches and people has been virtually ignored by the printed press, the electronic and broadcast media and the civil authorities reflects a systemic, societal view which devalues America’s gay and lesbian citizens,”Perry said.

Kyles, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., called on religious communities to take an active role in hate crimes.”Hate is in the culture,”said Kyles.”Years of hard work for civil rights should have erased the hate. But it didn’t.” Justice Department statistics released at the conference showed there were 8,759 hate crimes reported in 1996 _ the most recent year for which statistics are available _ compared with 7,947 in 1995, a jump of some 10 percent.

According to the Justice Department, race was a factor in 63 percent of all reported hate crimes, 14 percent were based on the victim’s religious affiliations, 12 percent were aimed against gays and lesbians, and 11 percent based on ethnic origin.”Churches are beginning to be involved, especially after the church burnings, but I definitely think that the church should be very much involved with stopping hate crimes,”Kyles said.


Schnitzer, of Billings, Mont., who helped rally the city against a rash of anti-Semitic crimes in 1993, said the plague of hate crimes will only be stopped when individuals begin modeling the value of tolerance.”This problem is far deeper”and more ingrained than education in school classrooms can eradicate, she said.”I have to teach my grandparents (not to hate) before I teach my kids,”she said.

The Rev. Randel T. Osburn, of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, called on churches to”challenge elected officials who have gained their trust.””The religious community ought to challenge itself to live by it’s own doctrine. The church also needs to become what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called a headlight, or a leader in these issues.”We’re morally bankrupt, and that’s a spiritual issue,”Osburn said of the rash of hate crimes.”America has lost it’s soul and the religious community needs to redeem the soul of America.”

MJP END IRVIN

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