A lot is being made of the recent hanging of Sarah Palin in effigy.  Fox News is arguing that if the same thing was done with Senator Barack Obama it would be a hate crime.  Senator Obama was hanged in effigy not long ago.  It generated publicity but nowhere near what we are seeing on the Palin hanging.  Interestingly it was done at a private Quaker founded college. It was investigated by the Secret Service, FBI and local authorities.  While many found it offensive no criminal wrongdoing was found.   Here is how  hate crimes are generally defined in states that have laws against them:

Hate crimes are criminal acts or attempted criminal acts against an individual or group of individuals because of their actual or perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.

Without the intent required to be a hate crime and everything else being equal, I have no problem with effigy hangings for Palin,  Obama, or any other political candidate as long as the intent is political expression.  Hanging in effigy has been a part of political expression and dissent in America pre-dating the Revolutionary war.  I feel safe in stating that the late King George has been hung in effigy more times than George Bush, Barack Obama or Sarah Palin will ever be.  Effigies of President Bush  and other presidents including Abraham Lincoln have been hung and burned throughout history. You have to look at the circumstances and context of the act.  In Palin’s case  the motivation may have been simple Halloween art.  For a effigy hanging to be a hate crime you generally have to prove that the underlying act was criminal AND that the motivation behind it was the person’s race or other protected minority status. This can be very difficult to prove without an clear criminal act attached. There are countless instances throughout history when effigy hangings and similar activities were clearly race and hate related.  Most recently we witnesses the noose hangings surrounding the Jena 6. Those were not political statements. They were statement of racial hatred.

With regards to the Holloween Sarah hanging and any future hangings of political expression, if local officials are able to pull up some local statute relating to community asthetics etc. as a pretext to meet the underlying criminal act requirement I believe that if challenged, they would lose on First Amendment Grounds. The First Amendment potects the offensive as well as the offended.  Just ask Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell. Let Sarah hang!