Just curious, but would you punish someone who killed another person in a drunken bar fight with the same vigor you would punish someone that gathered toghether a gang of men and marched down the street in white cloths and torches and burn a cross in a black man’s yard, before pulling him out of his house and stringing him up in the tree out front?

So you honestly beleive those two crimes fit in the same category, deserving the same punishment for the taking of a life? I’m not saying I support hate crimes legislation, but I have a hard time getting my head around two such disparate actions and saying they are BOTH hate crimes by definition. I for one would punish the latter much harder than the former.

The government always tries to factor in the violator’s thinking when determining their crime. I believe they refer to it as motivation. So that is nothing new, and is absolutely necessary to properly determine the extent of a crime, who may have committed the crime, and to convincingly prosecute them.

But, like you, I do have somewhat of a problem with hate-crime legislation, and can’t necessarily fault the Preachers for their concerns.

One the one hand, I believe that violent crimes, of any kind, are as atrocious as the next. Murder is murder, assault is assault, and prosecuting ? in the case of hate crimes ? based on what the assailant’s beliefs were regarding their victim, seems a dangerous road to go down.

I think, as you pointed out, it can certainly lead to the government becoming thought-police.

On the other hand, hate crimes in this country target very specific groups of people, and by doing so, may need to be prosecuted differently.

Either way, the “emotional harm” part of the legislation seems the most dangerous to me.

DVanWechel, I agree that the motive of a crime does affect how a guilty party is punished. However, the various degrees of assault/murder already cover any possible motivation for a violent crime. Why tack on extra fines because we think that in addition to being a murderer a criminal might also be a racist? He’s already a murderer!

Hate-crimes legislation factors in when addressing level of guilt, i.e. accountability. Hatred without behavior/action demonstrating that hatred is not a crime (at least not in this country). Harmful behavior/action bolstered by hatred is a crime that is intensified due to its additional affront against social norms.

Hate-crimes legislation carefully addressing *specific* harmful behaviors makes perfect sense to me.

Moreover, the court emphasized that the government has a perfectly legitimate interest in punishing “bias-motivated crimes” because such crimes are especially likely to inflict emotional harm on their victims, incite community unrest and provoke retaliatory violence.

So a side benefit of prosecuting hate-crimes is the possibility of quelling retaliation and unrest.
Seems to make sense, but will it work?

Also, as written, the bill encases fire, firearms and explosions, but what if someone lynches another in a hate crime, or pulls another Matthew Shepard, and beats someone up and ties him to a fence. Why only firearms legislation?

Christopher Hitchens dealt with this very well in his conference in Toronto some time ago.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/03/free_speech_6.html#comments

One thing this thread header shows is that just being an atheist doesn’t make you a good person.

I couldn’t find in this legislation any language prohibiting hate speech/thought. Would you be able to point to where it does so?