Michigan’s 4474 criminalizes hurting someone’s feelings or making the person feel threatened – subjective and arbitrary criteria that are virtually impossible to defend against in court. The two exceptions are if the conduct is constitutionally protected or if it serves a legitimate purpose.
As one might expect, the law is begging Michigan Democrats, who locked down the state and prevented people from buying anything they deemed “non-essential,” to abuse the living daylights out of entire groups of political opponents. In fact, this is the long-term purpose of the law, but first the short-term effects.
Two parts of the bill stand out. First up is the “injury or severe mental anguish” clause. This part of the law basically makes it possible to lock people up for things like pointing out reality. If you’re a culture reporter and published an article calling a man who claims to be a woman a man, that is theoretically grounds for getting five years in the slammer and a $10,000 fine if he protests. Prayed outside an abortion clinic and made a woman feel bad? Go to jail, Merrick Garland has already set the precedent here. Defend yourself against a member of a protected group but happen to utter a slur in the heat of the moment? Too bad. The bill doesn’t consider circumstances.
The bill can definitely become a double-edged sword for Whitmer and her legions of doom. Since having fat pedophiles dressed up as demons twerking in front of religious kids certainly can fall under the harassment on the basis of religion (remember, it’s all about feelings), then Christians who have protested porn and drag in schools should be able to use the law for good.
Enter the insidious “legitimate purpose clause” – the way the Michigan Democrats will decide which conduct qualifies as felonious and which one doesn’t. If parents complain and file a complaint on the basis of religion against porn in schools or drag queens, will the state say that showing kids porn or exposing them to sexualized drag shows serves the legitimate purpose of fighting homophobia and transphobia? We’ve already seen the corporate press make such claims. Could the teachers and drag queens then accuse the parents of harassing them on the basis of sexual identity and counter-charge them? In Whitmer’s Michigan, we all know the answer.
And don’t think their promise to respect “constitutionally protected” activity means anything. It doesn’t mean anything to the DOJ and I guarantee you as a Michigan resident it doesn’t mean anything to Stretchin Gretchen or her allies in the legislature. If the Constitution mattered, they wouldn’t be passing this bill in the first place.
The bill will no doubt go to SCOTUS and probably be struck down. But in the meantime, expect the Democrats to ruin as many opponents through lawfare, because with them, the process is the punishment, not the penalty – at least in the short-term. And, as Ted Cruz said, the court is only 1-2 votes away from such law being allowed to stand.
While it gets fought out in court, let’s explore where a Michigan Democrat with Merrick Garland’s Bolshevik impulses could take this law down the road. Christianity is no doubt a threat to transgenderism. The religion cannot coexist – no matter how hard libertarians try to say otherwise – with an ideology that is dedicated to destroying everything they believe. Once Michigan’s Democrats decide that simply being a Christian and expressing constitutionally-protected Christian teachings intimidates LGBT individuals or anyone else the state protects, get ready. Because when they’ve reached the point of targeting entire groups, it’s not going to be five years in a state penitentiary – it’s going to be a one-way ticket to some remote corner of the Upper Peninsula where no one ever sees you again. This logic can be applied to walking while black in a liberal white area or any other situation where there may be a perceived threat. Read your Soviet history for more on how this ends.
Michele Gama Sosa is an opinion editor for the Daily Caller and a historian by training.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.