Earlier this week, four young men in Atlanta, Georgia, were arrested for cutting up Pride flags and placing them in a Pride-painted crosswalk. No one was assaulted. No property was permanently damaged. But because of the nature of the flags involved, these young men could now be charged under Georgia’s hate crime law.
Yes—in a Republican-controlled state, a teenager could now face up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine for an act of protest, thanks to legislation passed in 2020 by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican governor.
If you think hate crime laws are just a problem in California or Washington—you’re wrong. These laws have quietly taken root in red states, often with bipartisan support, and they are now being weaponized to punish speech, protest, and dissent.
In 2020, Georgia passed House Bill 426 (HB 426), which creates sentence enhancements for crimes committed with “bias motivation.” It doesn’t create a standalone hate crime offense—meaning someone has to be convicted of an underlying crime first—but if the judge determines the crime was motivated by bias against certain protected characteristics, extra penalties are tacked on.
➤ What does that look like?
For designated misdemeanors (like simple assault or trespass), the judge must impose 6–12 months in jail and up to $5,000 in fines.
For felonies, the law requires an additional 2 years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines—on top of the original sentence.
HB 426 includes a long list of protected categories: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, and mental or physical disability.
It also requires law enforcement to file a Bias Crime Report every time they believe a bias-motivated act has occurred—even if no arrest is made. These reports go to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) for tracking and publication in the state's Uniform Crime Reports.
If someone burns a Pride flag—or, in this case, cuts one up—they could be charged with criminal trespass or vandalism plus a hate crime enhancement, simply based on perceived “bias.” And here’s the kicker: intent is judged based on perception—what law enforcement or a prosecutor thinks you were thinking.
Over the past few years, I’ve done extensive researching into the history of hate crimes in Washington state, so I was curious what this would look like had the same crime occurred in Washington.
Washington has had a version of hate crime legislation since 1989, but in recent years, it’s ramped up dramatically. Washington’s law isn’t just a sentence enhancement—it actually defines hate crimes as standalone Class C felonies.
That means even without an underlying criminal conviction, a person can be prosecuted for a hate crime simply for committing one of the following:
Assaulting someone
Damaging property
Threatening a person or group in a way that causes “reasonable fear”—as judged by a person who shares the victim’s identity (read that again)
And as of 2025, if the state believes you acted “in whole or in part” because of the victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability? You’re looking at:
Up to 5 years in prison
A $10,000 fine
The updated [expanded] law says that even if bias wasn’t the only motivation, it's enough to trigger prosecution. That is a dangerous legal standard that opens the door to criminalizing ambiguous or symbolic acts.
Here's the part that should concern every parent, conservative, and free speech advocate:
Let’s say your teenager in Washington does something foolish—cuts up a Pride flag, maybe doesn’t even realize where it came from—and throws it in a crosswalk. Under Washington’s law, that child could be prosecuted for a hate crime and face up to five years in prison. There’s no need to prove violent intent. Just perceived bias.
In Georgia, the same act could result in two years in prison on top of the original sentence—even though there’s no evidence of violence, no bodily harm, and no threat.
And yet, these same laws are selectively enforced. We’ve all watched the left vandalize churches, attack police precincts, destroy American flags and statues—and never face hate crime charges. So what we’re seeing is not equal application of the law, but political targeting.
📊 By the Numbers: Hate Crime Laws Aren’t Lowering Crime
Here’s something else that should raise eyebrows: States with the most expansive hate crime laws report the highest number of hate crimes. And the data makes that crystal clear.
Georgia has a population of around 11 million. In 2023, the state reported 142 hate crimes.
Washington State, with a population of only 8 million, reported 625 hate crimes in the same year.
That’s more than four times as many hate crimes in a smaller population.
And it’s no coincidence that Washington has one of the broadest hate crime laws in the country—not just sentence enhancements like Georgia, but standalone felony charges, legal inferences based on symbolic actions, and sweeping protections including "gender identity and expression."
So what does this tell us?
These laws don’t reduce hate crimes—they expand the definition so broadly that more things qualify.
The more vague and politically driven the law becomes, the more opportunities there are for selective enforcement, inflated statistics, and ideological punishment.
States like Washington are not responding to a surge in hate crimes—they are redefining dissent as hate and prosecuting it accordingly.
Meanwhile, a state like Georgia—despite its Republican leadership—has already opened the door to similar abuses.
To be clear: the problem isn’t that real hate crimes don’t exist. The problem is that activist lawmakers and prosecutors are rewriting the rules to make it easier to label unpopular beliefs and protest as criminal “hate.”
Hate crime laws used to be about protecting marginalized groups from genuine violence and discrimination. But today, they’re increasingly used as tools to criminalize dissent.
Protest the wrong symbol? It’s hate.
Misgender someone? It’s hate.
Say something “offensive”? Maybe that’s hate too.
The Georgia and Washington laws may differ in scope and structure, but they share one dangerous trait: they punish people based on subjective interpretations of motive. That’s not justice—that’s ideology.
What Can You Do?
This is why we must stay informed and speak out. Legislators—even Republicans —have been tricked into supporting these laws because they sound compassionate. But in reality, they are being weaponized against good people for the crime of having the wrong worldview.
Talk to your kids about this. Talk to your legislators. And stay connected so we can continue to expose and challenge these policies before they’re expanded further.
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