Detnews dot com (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070601/OPINION03/706010306/1008/OPINION01)
George Will
Friday, June 01, 2007
Hate crime laws -- 45 states already have them; Congress does not mind being duplicative -- mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed because of thoughts that government especially disapproves. That is, crimes committed because of, not merely accompanied by, those thoughts. Mind-reading juries are required to distinguish causation from correlation.
The federal hate crime law enacted in 1968 enhanced punishments only for crimes against persons engaged in a federally protected activity, such as voting. H.R. 1592 would extend special federal protections to persons who are crime victims because of their race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. But there are many other groups, so there will be other hate crime bills.
Sheesh. People make the most contrived arguments to defend bigotry...
Hate crimes isn't about conferring special protection, its about ensuring that the perpetrators of crimes of truly malicious intent are punished accordingly.
We make a distinction between premeditated murder, self defense, and accidental killing, and so forth even though all of these are effectively the 'same thing' (i.e. the different degrees of murder, justifiable homicide, and manslaughter). Why? Because the intent is vastly different in each case, and we punish crimes with serious intent to harm or harass more severely because they are of a different nature that we especially wish to prevent.
And sadly, even the law enforcement is not immune to bias and bigotry. Perhaps if everyone was truly equal in the eyes of the law, then there would be no need. In reality, the police and investigators are ordinary people as well, and subject to the same feelings that may have caused the crime in the first place. So long as these conditions exist, hate crimes provisions are essential.
Really, if people truly want to fight hatred and hate crimes, then treating them especially seriously is the just thing to do.
Although there is no specific laws about this, for example, killing a cop will get you an examplary penalty. Because societies knows that if allows policemen to be killed without the harshest punishment, then anarchy would be close at hand.
Its the same thing with attacking more vulnerable members of society just because they exists. Society must show that it can defend those that cannot defent themselves, its one of its purpose; if it cannot again society reverts to anarchy.
In both case, specifically singling out the attacks, shows that these issues cannot be let to fester like open sores to treaten law and order.
Isn't this, like, the second piece George Will has written on this topic? Maybe we need to all start sending him articles and statistics on violence that was directed towards members of the LGBT community bewcause they were members of the LGBT community. I suspect he feels safe in making his pontifications that no one will stand up to him...
Karen