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Hate and Discrimination

Michele Bachmann: Hate Crimes Hotline Is A Violation Of The Separation Of Church And State

Former Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann was a guest on Jan Markell’s “Understanding The Times” radio program again last weekend, where she claimed that a hotline set up by the city of Minneapolis for reporting hate crimes was fascist and a violation of the separation of church and state.

Last month, Minneapolis announced that a hotline had been established to allow residents to report hate crimes, which include "any crime against a person or property motivated by prejudice against someone’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity. This includes prejudice-motivated property damage (including graffiti), stalking and assault."

Bachmann claimed that this hotline is really an attempt to outlaw criticism of Islam and institute Sharia law, insisting that its creation is a violation of the separation of church and state.

"What we're seeing is that hotlines are being set up by units of government for the purpose of encouraging people to call in and rat on their fellow man to report a hate crime," she warned. "What they're trying to do is implement anti-blasphemy laws. They're trying to implement Islamic Sharia law locally in order to quiet churches and quiet anybody who would talk about what the truth is about Islam."

"What they want is civilization jihad," Bachmann continued. "They want jihad through the court system to silence speech because when you take away someone's speech rights to speak out—like we're doing right now, to tell the truth about something—then it's game over ... There should be a lawsuit filed against the city of Minneapolis for doing this. They have violated the so-called separation of church and state that the left is so in love with because they're preferring Islam over any other religion and, number two, they're fascists. That's what they are, they're fascists; they want to shut down your right to free speech."