Should You Legislate Morality?
What would you say if someone told you that you shouldn’t legislate morality?
That’s the question our friends at the Colson Center tackle in the latest installment of their “What Would You Say?” video series.
Update: Iowa Man Who Burned LGBT Flag Sentenced to 16 Years for Hate Crime
The Washington Times reports that an Iowa man who stole an LGBT flag from a church and set the flag on fire has been sentenced to 16 years in jail.
Fifteen years of that sentence are due to the fact that prosecutors deemed stealing and burning a gay pride flag as a hate crime.
If this man had stolen and burned an American flag, he would not have been convicted of a hate crime, and he probably would not have been sentenced to 16 years in jail.
He might have been charged with theft, reckless use of fire, or even harassment, but not a hate crime.
The sentence for those crimes likely would be a year or two in jail — not 16.
Stories like these underscore how hate crimes laws create unequal penalties for crimes.
Hate crimes laws encourage courts to punish criminals for their beliefs rather than simply for their actions. They also fail to guarantee everyone equal protection under the law.
All of this simply goes to show why Arkansas does not need a hate crimes law.
You can read more about this story here.
Updated 2:50 PM December 20, 2019: Other news outlets indicate the man’s prior offenses may have played a role in his enhanced sentence as well.
Why is the Arkansas Lottery Budgeting Less for Scholarships This Year?
Recently we wrote about how the Arkansas Lottery has rolled out expensive lottery tickets that prey on the desperate and about how the Lottery continues to budget very little money for education.
However, this year the Lottery appears to be budgeting even less money for college scholarships than it usually does.
The Arkansas Lottery’s scholarship funding has fallen by nearly 24% since this time last year and 18.4% since this time two years ago.
Part of the reason may be that lottery ticket sales are down slightly this year, but that doesn’t seem to explain it fully.
Lottery revenue so far this year is about 9% lower than last year’s and 2.6% lower than 2017’s lottery revenue.
Why would scholarship funding plummet 18% – 24% just because lottery ticket sales are down by 2% – 9%?
Right now, college scholarships receive about 14.6 cents out of every dollar the Arkansas Lottery makes — compared with about 17.4 – 17.5 cents out of every dollar this time last year and two years ago.
In other words, even if the Arkansas Lottery’s revenue this year were as strong as last year’s, scholarship funding still would be down by about 3%.
All of this seems to indicate that the Arkansas Lottery has deliberately reduced its scholarship budget. But why would the Lottery do that?
There simply does not seem to be a good reason at this point.
All told, the Arkansas Lottery has given students $8.8 million less this fiscal year than last year and nearly $6.4 million less than in 2017.
Below is a comparison of Lottery revenue and scholarship funding for the past two fiscal years.
Lottery Revenue
| Month | Lottery Revenue 2017 | Lottery Revenue 2018 | Lottery Revenue 2019 |
| July | $36,885,396.81 | $42,413,352.70 | $41,239,173.79 |
| August | 49,320,459.23 | 40,343,279.62 | 40,899,086.75 |
| September | 36,405,731.14 | 35,198,809.72 | 36,202,677.79 |
| October | 39,802,740.53 | 57,575,285.62 | 38,932,640.23 |
| November | 36,186,107.78 | 37,700,016.00 | 36,118,641.12 |
| Total | $198,600,435.49 | $213,230,743.66 | $193,392,219.68 |
Lottery Scholarship Funding
| Month | Scholarships 2017 | Scholarships 2018 | Scholarships 2019 |
| July | $6,661,762.99 | $5,066,628.73 | $4,523,930.75 |
| August | 8,912,741.54 | 6,175,998.40 | 4,942,736.97 |
| September | 6,755,333.93 | 7,783,450.82 | 6,565,973.32 |
| October | 5,667,305.74 | 11,259,040.31 | 6,318,099.21 |
| November | 6,691,228.00 | 6,821,411.01 | 5,947,177.45 |
| Total | $34,688,372.20 | $37,106,529.27 | $28,297,917.70 |