JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Senate sent a bill aimed at combating messages of hate throughout the state to the Governor’s desk Wednesday morning.
The bill is partly modeled after a city ordinance passed here in Jacksonville earlier this year after hateful messages and symbols were projected on local buildings.
Jewish Floridians bore the brunt of the recent hate.
“Nationally Jews make up roughly two percent of the population, but yet, they’re a target of way over 50 percent of the hate messages,” said Adam Chaskin with the Jewish Community Alliance.
Chaskin helped champion the local ordinance passed here in Jacksonville earlier this year, which targeted the antisemitic projections seen on the CSX building and Jaguars stadium.
“It limits the opportunity for it to occur and it sends a message to other people that obviously there’s something wrong with this,” said Chaskin.
The state bill targets multiple forms of hate.
It makes it a 1st-degree misdemeanor to litter hateful messages on private residences, harass a person based on religious or ethnic clothing, display a message on a building without permission from the owner, refuse to leave a college campus while spreading hateful rhetoric and interrupt a religious assembly or funeral.
If it’s determined a credible threat was made during any of those activities, the charge is upgraded to a 3rd-degree felony.
Chaskin believes the statewide legislation will give law enforcement the tools needed to shut down the hateful acts that have plagued the state in recent months.
“We’ve now given law enforcement across the state the ability to do what they know is right,” said Chaskin.
Wednesday also happened to be Israel’s Independence Day.
The Governor is expected to travel to the Jewish state in the coming days as part of his ongoing international trade mission.
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