Port: North Dakota’s much-ballyhooed hate crime ordinances aren’t being used
MINOT, N.D. — I love words, as readers of this column probably know by now, and in particular, I love finding new words that precisely describe a given situation. So I was delighted to discover a new one this morning.
To “fudgel” is to pretend to work while not actually doing anything.
I’ll use it in a sentence: Hate crime ordinances are an act of fudgelling.
And they are.
It’s been almost two years since Fargo’s city commission voted to implement a new hate crime ordinance. The law is an intensifier for criminal charges, adding a class B misdemeanor if a crime is committed “in whole or part because of the victim’s perceived or actual race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ancestry.”
