By Jonathan Selden
State legislators get kooky mail all the time.
So senators weren”t surprised Feb. 7 when they received a slur-filled letter and compact disc from a national white supremacist group asking them to vote against a proposed hate crimes bill.
Then they noticed the postmark — Salt Lake City.
The event exhumed a seldom-acknowledged phenomenon — that Utah shelters a growing number of hate groups.
The National Alliance, a West Virginia based white supremacist organization, just recognized its Salt Lake City chapter as the “Most Active Unit of 2000.”
“Our organization is working day and night for the benefit and welfare of all whites, regardless of their religion, social status, or even nationality,” said Utah National Alliance member Alex Wiligut.
According to statistics compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Utah has six.
Like businesses relocating to an area because of Utah”s favorable tax climate, hate groups may be eyeing Utah because of its lax hate crime atmosphere.
“I like a non-restrictive, non-intrusive environment,” said National Alliance chair William Pierce.
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Utah”s current hate crime law is weak and too difficult to use.
“We”re not sending a very strong message when we have no prosecutorial tool to deal with crimes motivated by hate. We can”t address the problem when it arises,” said Jade Pusey, Shurtleff”s executive director of Law Enforcement.
Nevertheless, senators voted 16-12 Monday to defeat the bill.
They deny the National Alliance letter affected their vote.
“The reason that people are voting against it isn”t because they support those kinds of groups,” said Senate President Al Mansell, R-Midvale.
The letter and CD were explicit, calling O.J. Simpson”s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, a “piece of race-mixing trash … of whom we could say that she got what she deserved.”
Matthew Shepard, who was beaten, tied to a fence post and left to die by exposure, was termed a “young sodomite who made the fatal error of trying to find a date in the wrong bar.”
The CD called hate crime legislation a “Jewish concept … contrary to our whole western tradition of law.”
Sen. Lyle Hilliard, R-Logan, voted for the bill, but said hate groups would always be a problem.
“They exist, they”ll probably continue to exist, and as long as they don”t act out their hatred, that”s what we think is great about America: freedom of speech,” he said.
Toni Smithquist, 26 W. Girard Ave., Salt Lake City, said she has been the victim of a hate-motivated assault because she is gay.
“If they specifically target you because you belong to a certain group, the motivation is different, and the fear is different. I don”t generally live in fear, but if someone is going to attack me for whatever reason they have or think they have, then I want to know that it”s not going to go unpunished,” she said.
Pierce sees hate crime legislation as the “feet in the door” on the way to more restrictive speech crime laws.
“We”re not concerned with how this will affect us. We”re concerned about how this will affect the whole legal environment in America. None of these changes are healthy. None of them are good for us. They”re good only for the people who want to weaken us and destroy us,” he said.
