Commentary: Gays Should Be Protected from Hate Crimes Too, Regardless of What Church Leaders Say »
Posted by: 2sidestoeverything 12 months ago156 Comments Report this Story
Hate crimes are legally defined as crimes, usually violent, that target a victim because of his or membership in a certain group, usually defined by race, religion or ethnicity. According to the FBI, more than 15 percent of hate crimes reported to police in 2004 -- the last year for which data is available -- were committed against homosexuals.
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mossback11 months, 4 weeks ago
This is twaddle. Gays are already protected from crimes just like any US Citizen. But Gays seem to want "special" protection that makes them a privileged class wherein a crime against a gay person is more important than a crime against a straight person.
Gays say they "want to be equal" but then they ask for special privileges like this and wonder why the rest of us react in disgust.
There is no logic in those who practice homosexual behavior, only emotion.
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PapaWolf11 months, 4 weeks ago
You are WAY off. None of my gay friends want "special privileges." They just want to be able to live without fear of being attacked and/or killed just for being gay.
As for your:
>>wherein a crime against a gay person is more important than a crime against a straight person.
exactly how many straight people do you know have been attacked for simply being straight?
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stoutkraut12 months ago
A crime is a crime...all crime is motivated by HATE. To commit a act: murder, robbery, assault, battery, still is a crime no matter the race, creed, color or sexual orientation of the victim. To create a new series of laws is superfluous at best and is redundent and not needed, except as a feel good measure for a group that needs constant strokes that they're "ok."
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rwrnae12 months ago
Crime is crime, it should make NO difference if the victom is gay, straight, black, white or yellow.
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Russencrantz12 months ago
It shouldn't make a difference, but it does.
By definition, when a "hate crime" is commited, it is an act upon a greater group; The victim is unfortunate bystander to a greater conflict, and until that conflict is dealt with innocent people will continue to get caught up in this crossfire.
People who make the claim that all crimes are motivated by hate are greatly oversimplifying the matter. Not all crimes commited agaist gays/blacks/women/etc. are hate crimes, but when it is clear that the only or the prime motivation was hatred for the GROUP and not the individual, then it is a hate crime, and needs to be handled differently.
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puffin12 months ago
"Hate crimes are message crimes. They are different from other crimes in that the offender is sending a message to members of a certain group that they are unwelcome." Dr. Jack McDevitt, criminologist.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004885.html
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mossback11 months, 4 weeks ago
This is illogical. It makes certain crimes different based on the perceived thoughts of the perpetrator. This is simply another version of NAZI and Stalinist mind control perpetrated by gays to keep anyone from being able to criticize their lifestyle. If someone attacks a gay person then their crime is somehow worse, regardless of whether or not they knew the person was gay under these new laws.
This gets back to the whole issue of whether or not "gayness" is a choice. Since no one can tell if a person is gay by looking at them, (only by their behavior which is a choice) then you are saying that a person who commits a crime against a gay person (whom they can't tell is gay) is to be punished more harshly than if they commit the same crime against a straight person? This is logical BS and you know it.
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bernardouniversal12 months ago
i am deligthed that americans (above)
can be tolerant if they want to
but one thing shudnt be forgotten
this is the country where people use the bible to justify anything they needed to push their agendas forward!
like in the sixties discriminatin the blacks
or denyin women the vote
or just like they justified slavery etc etc.etc
today we might look back in regret and say : how did we do that(even its just about 40yrs ago)
but its a fact we need more time (the vast majority of folkz livin in jesusland:)
and maybe in 50 yrs we will be able to talk about any issue without taboo and fulfill all the needs that it takes to be a civilization ..but not now my fellow americans not now .
tellin them that the bible says nuttin directly about gays at all!!
is like tellin a kid that his dad isnt his real dad ,,it takes a while till they'll be able to cope with the reality
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natashas12 months ago
I feel that the gay community should be protected. I think just because a church can see this as a sin does not give them any reason to with hold some extra prison time for the people who harm them. I think the church needs to be looked into.
I believe everyone should recieve the same sentence for there crimes. I do not believe a man that murders a child should receive less time then a man that murders a gay man or women. Since the justice system does not work like this, I think it is important to bring as many charges as possible for the people who take out insane ideas into play by killing off or trying to chase away people who are not like them. No one would exist if these sick ideas were aloud to be carried out.
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Harbeas12 months ago
How the hell can this hate crime law be "justice"? You are singling out a particular group for special consideration. Doesn't that imply then that they are better than the other groups. This is BS, a crime committed against another person is a crime period and it should be prosecuted as such. It makes no difference whether that person is black, yellow, white, orange, Gay, bisexual, heterasexual, transexual, male, female, pretty, ugly, fat, skinny, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, smart, stupid etc. Enforce the crime!
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2sidestoeverything12 months ago
The problem is that crimes that are committed by people who hate a group for what ever reason do not get prosecuted the same in some instance because depending on the state, city, county you live in some feel a crime against a particular group is OK. Until everyone is treated equal we will need laws that specifically protect everyone.
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sanctusvia11 months, 4 weeks ago
We already have laws designed to protect everyone. The problem, as I see it, is that the interpretation of the laws is flawed, which you do mention. How do we get those laws interpreted as they were intended? I think that question has probably been asked about as long as we have had laws. Is the solution more laws? I don't know, but I suspect that it is not. More laws have a way of making things more murky. We already have so many laws now that it is hard to get out of bed in the morning and go to work, carry on your daily business, and go home in the evening without breaking *some* nonsense law that someone thought was a good idea at the time.
Everybody *should* be treated equally in an ideal world. But what, exactly, is equal? Who decides in any particular situation? Human beings are flawed by their very nature. More laws are probably not the answer. I don't know what the answer to that one is, or even if there *is* an answer.
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Jaydee4011 months, 4 weeks ago
"The problem is that crimes that are committed by people who hate a group for what ever reason do not get prosecuted the same in some instance because depending on the state, city, county you live in some feel a crime against a particular group is OK."
Making a new law will not change this at all, how can you expect a new law to be applied any better than the old ones? Your barking up the wrong tree and are giving ammunition to groups already unaccepting of the homosexual lifestyle. Now I admit pushing for the old laws to be applied properly will do the same thing, hate doesn't need a reason.
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PapaWolf11 months, 4 weeks ago
>>You are singling out a particular group for special consideration
For decades, or maybe even a century or 2, there were laws preventing certain groups from even walking down certain streets. It was ingrained in certain societies that these people were inferior & deserved basically no protections. Hate Crime Laws may go a little way to rectifying this & teaching people that ALL groups are equal under the law.
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joeblowe12 months ago
EVERYONE is entitled to EQUAL protection under the law. There really doesn't NEED to be specific laws to make one group MORE equal than others. Now, you are punishing people for what they might THINK - or more accurately for what some prosecutor THINKS they think (unless the perp makes a specific statement as to his state of mind at the time the crime was committed.). I thought we didn't do that in this country - guess I was mistaken... Or, looked at another way, it's PUNISHING people who DON'T belong to some (presumably) persecuted minority group.
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jmopinion11 months, 4 weeks ago
"Perhaps people don't realize that these laws would also help to protect a white protestant, if it was clear that race and religion were the only motivation for the crime".
Never happen. Poltically incorrect. Whites are the oppressors and every other group are victims according to the liberal media.
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researchanalyst12 months ago
You're not getting it. Its an enhancement to the sentence because they commited the crime because the person was gay.
A lot of times, judges will blow cases off. You put this in, that's going to be harder to do.
If somebody goes after somebody because of race or sexual identity in this country, heck yes I want them given a harder sentence than if it was just a mugging. I want the muggers making small rocks out of big rocks, then I want them putting the pieces back together before they get out.
I want the hate crime guys in Arizona in a tent fed by Halliburton.
The ministers being against this really ought to read their Bible and see where it says that Christ said to whup gays. This is a guy who ate with tax collectors. They'd better hope St Peter doesn't have a wrist splint.
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Jaydee4011 months, 4 weeks ago
The judge can still blow cases of, he controls the court and even with a new law if he is anti homosexual you will almost never get a hate crime conviction, it will not work. There are many reasons for crimes, is hate any worse than greed?
Lets say two guys get into a fight outside a bar, one fellow gay,one not. The gay guy gets bet up and charges are pressed, that hate crime now becomes a weapon the gay guy can use even if the other fellow didn't know he was gay.
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Harbeas12 months ago
I still disagree research. You are still singling out a particular group to get special consideration. They don't merit special consideration. If judges "blow cases off" the judicial committee should reprimand the judge for failure to do his duty. Giving a special group extra consideration is not the way to correct the problem.
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2sidestoeverything12 months ago
Harbeas you are not getting what is really being done here. It is not giving any group special treatment. Anyone who is attacked because of a hate crime will be sentence accordingly. This is just saying that everyone is included. There are different degrees of any crime for example murder, there are 1st, 2nd and etc. and each hold a different sentence.
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amazed12 months ago
If you plan to kill me and carry it out, that's premeditated murder. You're convicted, say you get 25 to lile. Now, say I'm gay or black or some other protected group. You plan to kill me, carry it out and while you're stomping me or whatever, you scream an epithet -- your sentence is now life without parole -- simply because I am a "protected" class. That's BS. I'm just as dead either way.
btw, I also don't favor stiffer penalties for cop killing -- their lives are ALSO worth no more than mine.
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Candida11 months, 4 weeks ago
2sidestoeverything, are you saying that the important thing isn't that the law should specifically include gays, but that it not restrict its application to race, gender and religion, or whatever the current plan is. I agree that it should include all groups, whether its nationality, membership in a club, tattoos, or anything. People should not be persecuted and intimidated by others for belonging to any group.
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puffin12 months ago
A Case of Enhanced Penalty
On October 7, 1989, Todd Mitchell, 19, and a group of other young black men were standing outside an apartment building in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They were discussing the movie, "Mississippi Burning," which concerns Ku Klux Klan terrorism against blacks in the South during the 1960s. As they were talking, a 14-year-old white boy, Gregory Reddick, happened to be walking on the other side of the street. Mitchell asked his friends, "Do you feel hyped up to move on some white people?" He then pointed to Reddick and said, "There goes a white boy. Go get him!" About 10 members of the group, but not Mitchell himself, ran across the street, beat up Reddick, and stole his tennis shoes. Severely beaten, Reddick remained in a coma for four days and suffered permanent brain damage.
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smeejay11 months, 4 weeks ago
i was going to say you surely mustn't live or have grown up in the south. then i saw the seattle moniker. i can assure you that statistically the sentances for criminals that have committed a crime against a minority is very different in the south compared to a much more progressive area such as seattle.
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Teagen11 months, 4 weeks ago
All crime is an act of hate. This only gives the Feds a chance to correct mistakes made by the local or state AG. Frank Jude vs. Milwaukee PD is a great example. Rather than screw around with more feel good laws, enforce the laws on the books the first time out. You want more prison time, modify the laws.
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puffin11 months, 4 weeks ago
"All crime is an act of hate."
Not true. I don't think Mitchell Lawrence, who was sentenced to two years in jail for selling a teaspoonful of marijuana to an undercover police officer for $20 was hatin' on anybody.
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/34814/
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