Your personally free to shun anyone who you decide deserves to be cut out off your life.
But the issue as I understand it ,is when you try to influence others to shun the individual and encourage them to cut off association with the individual .
So when jws make a announcement saying touchofgrey is no longer a jws ,they are basically telling everyone who hears the announcement to shun them, that's when it could be considered a hate crime.
Which is probably why they are saying it's up to the individual to decide whether they will shun the individual or not ,but as usual they are speaking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.
A crime, eh? It doesn't matter if they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. When a group has a rule against ex-members, the only way it's enforced is through the current members. The active members either believe it's the right choice to shun former members, Or they don't but do it anyway because they agree their agency should be outsourced. No matter what, bringing the state into this sets a horrible precident for all sorts of unintended consequences. Try to think outside of the JW-hurt-bubble to what it means more generically.
Trying to outlaw “shunning” would allow the government to intrude into more than just religion. Many groups rightfully choose to ostracize disruptive individuals, from friend circles choosing to ignore manipulative and drama-causing individuals, to clubs and organizations disinviting individuals trying to subvert those organizations for their own ends, to religions removing individuals attempting to proselytize a different religion from within their own ranks. Such a law would effectively allow a government to control who people can choose to associate with.
But I get it - religious shunning is top tier assholery. Shunning can be horrible and cruel. But you simply can't make a law prohibiting people from being assholes.
Also, you are removing all of the agency from the current members - people who have and continue to make astoundingly horrible moral choices. Don't let them off the hook by making them victims. They do have a choice.