(no subject)

[theweaselking]

In the wake of the passing of the hate crimes bill in the US (and it's soon-to-be veto by Bush) Pam's House Blend examines "Who is it OK to hate?"

It's a history of where the hate crimes laws came from, what they mean, and then goes into 22 case studies of people raped, beaten, and murdered because they were or were believed to be gay.

Comments

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. It proved an interesting read, although I still see nothing to change my current view on this. Every case study they presented I can find a parallel to where the victim was NOT violated or killed for their gender or race, but they were violated and killed for other equally stupid reasons.

Crime is crime. If a redneck decides to lynch a black man, or a jock stomps a gay guy to death, or a bank robber shoots the teller in order to leave no witnesses, or I strangle a person for putting an I LOVE GEORGE BUSH sticker on their SUV, the victim is still dead. Equally dead all around. Hate Crime Legislation is nothing short of Thought Policing. This is the beginning of a slippery slope that, if I may be allowed to conjecture colorfully, will only end once it becomes a felony to tell someone the words "Fuck You!"

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

It's naive to think that these things happen in a void, completely unconnected with anyone or anything else. If you're in the right neck of the backwoods, that redneck deciding to lynch a black man and that jock stomping the gay guy to death will get off scot free, because the locals have decided that boy needed killin', and it's a shame it had to happen like that, but what can you do. Calling it a "hate crime" isn't thought policing - it's often the only way to see that any justice gets done at all.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my point is this:

How much farther are we going to take the concept of a Hate Crime? If we pass this bill, what group will be the next to call for hate crime legislation?

And why do we need it in the first place? I think it's pretty obvious that most violent acts are done with malice and hate, be it a slow culmination of many long years, or a spur of the moment, single-serving hatred.

Rather than making more laws that can easily be twisted to, if I may, fuck more people with trumped-up charges, how about we reform the system we already have to make sure ALL crimes are prosecuted and brought to court fairly?

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

You're conflating a few very different ideas here, first the idea of a "hate crime" with the idea that hating might be made criminal, which is clearly not the case, and second that advocacy groups pushing for this legislation are actually specified in the legislation itself. They are not; no specific group is. Broad classes of groups, though ("religion", "ethnicity", etc) are. There's nothing in the law that says it's extra-bad to be mean to ashkenazi jews, recidivist catholics or unfashionably-accoutred eunuchs. None of these laws have ever, nor will ever, reach that level of granularity.

You say it's "pretty obvious that most violent acts are done with malice and hate", and all I can think to say to that is that this is also very clearly not the case, and that it is an effort to reform the system to make sure all crimes are prosecuted and brought to court fairly, and even at all.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

"Crime is crime."

The murder isn't the only issue. It's the incitement to the crimes that's the difference in "hate crimes". Not that a murder victim is any deader because of the motive, but that if we don't act with particular repugnance after someone is attacked for loving people the wrong way or looking funny it will be repeated.

A hate crime is no worse for the victim than a similar crime committed out of avarice or envy, but it's arguably worse for society as a whole.

-- Steve wants to leave the perpetrators no bolt-hole of "it had to be done 'cause they's ebul."

[flemco.livejournal.com]

A hate crime is no worse for the victim than a similar crime committed out of avarice or envy, but it's arguably worse for society as a whole.

I disagree strongly. Murder is murder. Rape is Rape. Arson is Arson. If all hate crimes suddenly stopped, but the level of regular crime increased until the crime rate was pretty much on its regular course, I fail to see how this would make us a better society.

I don't give a fuck WHY someone did it. If they committed murder one, there's nothing they can give as a reason that I would accept as a legally valid excuse. There's no reason to differentiate between "I did it cuz I hates n*ggers" and "I did it cuz his moustache made me angry."

[siouxsyn.livejournal.com]

So it's still okay to hate emos and rednecks.