MAITLAND, Fla. — A bipartisan bill filed Thursday by five Florida state representatives aims to curb hate amid a rise in antisemitic acts statewide.
The bill’s sponsors say the measure comes in response to a recent surge in propaganda flyers being distributed, swastikas and other hateful images being projected onto buildings and the harassment of people wearing religious garb.
They say the aim is to define certain antisemitic acts as hate crimes and increase those penalties to felonies.
State Rep. Randy Fine (R – District 33), who identifies as the only Republican legislator who is Jewish, said he felt it personally important to co-introduce the bill.
“While you have a right to free speech, when your speech enters conduct that is illegal — littering, violence, trespassing, graffiti — we’re going to hold you accountable,” he told Spectrum News.
Just in the past few weeks in Central Florida, antisemitic messages were projected onto an Orlando building, propaganda was left in a local neighborhood and graffiti was found in a bathroom at Dr. Phillips High School.
The bill would make it a third-degree felony and a hate crime to distribute flyers with “religious or ethnic animus” if those flyers are then discarded and littered. According to the bill, anyone caught stalking or harassing a person based their on religious or ethnic clothing or heritage would be committing a third-degree felony.
The bill gives definitions of what antisemitism could look like, including the use of Nazi symbols like a swastika. It also lists the types of defacement and damages to places of worship, cemeteries, religious schools and centers, and public and private properties that would be considered third-degree felonies and hate crimes.
Amid a rash of hateful images and texts projected on the outside of buildings, the bill would also make it so projecting an image on a property without the owner’s consent is a first-degree misdemeanor, rising to a third-degree felony and hate crime if it’s determine the image evidences “religious or ethnic animus.”
Christine Beresniova, PhD, the vice president of operations, education and programming for the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida, feels the bill is a good way to start a dialogue but says enforcement and conversation on the matter are key.
“It empowers our communities to call out antisemitism when they see it, to speak up and say something in the form of reporting it,” she said.
“These kinds of acts are intended to menace anyone who believes in an inclusive society, anybody in our community who wants to see a diverse and strong Orlando,” she added.
Fine says a Senate companion bill will be filed soon. If the bill passes both chambers and is signed into law, it would go into effect in October.