Revised hate crime bill heads to full Indiana Senate

As it currently stands, a judge could count as an aggravating factor — to sentence a convicted criminal to more than the advisory prison term — a crime that's perpetrated against an individual or group based on their actual or perceived race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation or age.

That list, however, is not exclusive under the amended proposal.

The potential sentence enhancement also could be applied to any "offense involving the property of an individual or a group of individuals, with the intent to harm or intimidate an individual or a group of individuals because of a perceived or actual characteristic of the individual or group of individuals."

In addition, the legislation now mandates current police officers and police recruits be trained in recognizing, investigating and reporting bias-motivated crimes, and requires all Indiana police agencies to regularly submit bias crime data to the state.

"It gets done everything I want to get done," Bohacek said. "We were always going to have a list. There were some key components to the list that to me were nonnegotiable, and the nonnegotiable pieces stayed in."

Critics of the measure, including Ron Johnson Jr., senior pastor at Living Stones Church in Crown Point, warned the committee that it will criminalize thought and compel religious organizations to violate their beliefs, particularly those concerning gender identity and sexual orientation.

"As soon as we create special classes among Hoosiers, we immediately weaponize the state to punish everybody who wants to speak out against what they happen to disagree with," Johnson said.

"Part of a healthy democracy is the freedom to publicly share our views and not have to worry about losing our jobs, not having to worry about watching our people be harassed and fined for simply believing what the Bible teaches about sexuality."

Bohacek said that interpretation, echoed for the panel by several Christian leaders, completely misunderstands the proposal, which he said has nothing to do with what people think, but instead how they act.

"You can't commit a thought crime in the U.S. You can only commit a crime of action," Bohacek said.

"So if you commit a crime of action and the motivation is because of somebody's immutable characteristics, and that is the reason why you did it, then that's a bias crime."

Indiana is among just five states — including Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina and Wyoming — without a bias-motivated or hate crime law on the books, due in part to the GOP-led Senate in prior years refusing to consider protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers.

Numerous business and community leaders told the committee that needs to change, so Indiana will continue to be viewed as a welcoming state for tourists, commerce and new residents.

Senators also heard from Pierre Atlas, a member of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in Carmel, about the personal pain that a bias-motivated crime can cause.

Atlas said even though his family was out of town last July when their synagogue was vandalized with Nazi imagery, "We felt the pain and the sense of intimidation that this hate crime was intended to convey to us as Jews.

"It is an attack on that entire group, not just the individual. It is intended to intimidate and terrorize that entire group. A hate crime is, in this way, more akin to an act of terrorism," Atlas said.

"We need to signal, in law, that Indiana will not tolerate any act of hate committed against any group in the state of Indiana."