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I agree with @An ally in NJ and I also worry about the law being abused. What if a straight and gay person get into an argument over lets say money and they fight. Out of spite the gays person could lie and say he was attacked because of his sexual orientation instead of the real reason. Also what about when a gay person attacks someone because of their opinion on gay rights? It's not unprecedented. That should be filed as a hate crime but of course it won't be.
While I am vehemently for LGBTQ rights in all forms, I feel I must justify those who oppose hate crime legislation. While I concur that most of the arguments made on this page are legitimately deconstructed, and most of the arguments made by the right wing in this country reek of homophobia, the claim that crimes are already punished by the law and therefore legislating based on motivation in this sense is wrong is a different animal altogether. Yes, motivations are punished differently, but it is motivation in the sense of planning. Different penalties exist for premeditated murder than, say, vehicular manslaughter, but the motive for the murder does not determine the punishment. Premeditated first degree murder is premeditated first degree murder, no matter the motivation. Hate crimes are heinous, to be sure. But the law must necessarily remain separate from moralizing in this way, because morals are not universal, and the law must be. If I kill a man because of his religion, race, or sexual orientation, he is no more or less dead than if I had killed him because he slept with my wife. When we start legislating based on a person's thoughts, we have crossed a line that should never be crossed. Putting aside objections that we can never truly prove a person's motivations, even if he claims he committed a crime out of hate, it would still be wrong to punish someone for their thoughts. If we punish them for their actions - and I'm counting planning as an action for these purposes - that is fine. But we cannot punish someone for their beliefs, regardless of whether their beliefs are hateful or not. It would be just as wrong to punish someone for being of a race or religion. We cannot have the government doling out punishment for thoughts, even if those thoughts lead to crimes. We may punish the crimes, of course, but to conflate the two is a huge mistake, in my opinion. I add that I am a jew, and that I have seen, both personally and in my history, a great deal of antisemitism. Still, though, I would say that the punishment is merited by the crime itself, and not by the motivation. The degree of planning is a separate issue. I would hold the nazis accountable for their evil, but I feel that the punishment should not be worsened by the antisemitism. The job of the government is to punish a crime, not a thought. Every time I hear about hate crime legislation, I start to fear big brother. I reiterate that I am an ally, and I support equal rights for everyone. But that includes the deluded souls who commit crimes, because even if they are terrible people, they are still people, and I believe that all beliefs, no matter how horrible, should be respected - or, at least, we should respect a person's right to have them.
Dear friends, Were you aware that U.S. Senator Jim DeMint's recently wrote pastors and religious leaders, urging them to rise up and stop the passage of Senate Bill 909 - the pending Senate version of the federal hate crimes legislation? Read more about it here at my blog. Madison
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Last Modified 2011-09-17 |
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