Anti-gay rights activists denied standing in attempt to invalidate hate crime statute

Gary Glenn, Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette and James Combs sued the Attorney General in Federal Court, seeking to argue that the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act is unconstitutional. They claimed that the Act infringed on their ability to speak and preach against homosexuality but they also denied any intent to commit any offense proscribed by the Act. Under the circumstances, since the Plaintiffs could not claim that they were inhibited from proscribed actions, the Court held that they did not have legal "standing" to argue that the Act was an infringement on their legal rights. The Sixth Circuit Federal judges concluded that the lawsuit was merely a political statement (or "stunt") directed against heightened protection of homosexuals from criminal violence--a concept the plaintiffs did not agree with.