WorldNetDaily today repeated long-debunked myths about the 2009 Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Law to stoke fears about a new Hate Crimes Reporting Act introduced in the wake of the mass shooting at two Jewish centers outside of Kansas City.

Barack Obama, when he was new in the Oval Office, signed a “hate crimes” law that created a two-tier system of punishment, increasing the punishment for a Christian pastor who attacked a homosexual but not for a homosexual who attacked a Christian pastor. The reasoning was simple. The homosexual is in a protected class of U.S. citizens, but the Christian pastor is not.

Of course, that is not true, as the 2009 explicitly covers crimes “committed because of the actual or perceived religion.”

The dishonesty continues:

American Family Association President Tim Wildmon warned the new law “creates a kind of caste system in law enforcement, where the perverse thing is that people who engage in nonnormative sexual behavior will have more legal protection than heterosexuals. This kind of inequality before the law is simply un-American.” He pointed out that the legislation also creates possible situations in which pastors could be arrested if their sermons on sexuality can be linked in even the remotest way to acts of violence. For example, if someone hears the biblical description of homosexuality as a sin and uses that message as a reason for acting. The Alliance Defending Freedom also blasted the “hate-crimes” bill, calling it “another nail in the coffin of the First Amendment.”

The Shepard-Byrd Act was signed into law in 2009, and yet there still hasn’t been a single case of anyone — pastor, politician or activist — prosecuted for speaking out against homosexuality.

As we have noted, the act “strengthens law enforcement’s ability to fight violent crime – not vigorous debate, not sermons against homosexuality, not hateful speech, not the infamous ‘God hates fags’ protesters, not the spreading of misinformation that thrives on constitutionally protected right-wing television, radio, and blogosphere,” and the law clearly states that “nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

Anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller also entered the fray, warning that the new bill — which calls for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to update and existing report on “telecommunications influence on hate crimes” — will be used to silence opponents of Islam and enforce Sharia law.