“Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society.”
Unconstitutional Legislation Threatens Freedoms, May 7, 2007 freerepublic.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1830822/posts
2000s, 2006-2009
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Ron Paul 148
American politician and physician 1935Related quotes

“Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.”
Part 1, 1919 - 1968 The Road to 24 Sussex Drive, p. 83
Memoirs (1993)
Context: What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.

London: A Poem (1738) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/london2.html, lines 158–161

Statement on the Congressional Education Plan, May 23, 2001 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr052301.htm
2000s, 2001-2005

Ibid. p. 53
History Will Absolve Me (October 16th, 1953)

The Independent, 21 July 1989