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.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-07 07:31 pm (UTC)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.