Hate crimes.

[ccharles000]

Me and my friend are having an argument. He is against passing a hate crime bill I am for it. He is not homophobic he is against all hate crime protections including religion. He says that all crimes are hate crimes. What is a good way to articulate a reason to have hate crime legislation?:think:

[IndianaJones]

1. a hate crime is a crime not only against the victim, but society as a whole....

it deserves extra consideration for increased punishment.

[Mountainman]

2. Ask that kid in Oxnard who was killed, Oh sorry he's dead. You think he would be dead

if he wasn't gay?

[nomorenomore08]

3. Crimes with a "special" motive need a "special" deterrent. That's how I look at it.

And as has been noted before, race and religion are already covered under hate crime statutes. So saying you're "against all hate crime protections," while it might be fine and dandy in theory, is a moot point.

[Warpy]

4. I'm against hate crimes legislation

Hate as a motive should definitely be considered at time of sentencing for any violent crime. Making it a separate crime is making thought a crime.

Can you imagine a world where fallible people who have been raised with prejudices are guilty of hate crime when they have never acted on their prejudices except in their preference of social circle?

That is what separating hate out as a separate crime opens the door to, and that is why I'm against it.

If someone commits vandalism, assault, arson, murder or any other violent act that is found to be motivated by hate of a group, then throw the book at him. Just don't try to make it a crime before one is committed.

[BlueFireAnt]

5. Yeah, what he said. Plus

all hate crime laws do is further divide people into different categories. I thought that was what we ,as a party of tolerance, was aiming to end.

[The Magistrate]

6. You Might Try This Tack, Sir

It is a common and ancient feature of law to assess motive behind an act in determining the degree of its criminality. Some crimes, for example, attempted murder, are wholly dependent on determination of motive behind an act: if the intent to kill cannot be shown, the crime of attempted murder cannot have ocurred, though heinous assault or some other degree of assault certainly has. "Hate Crime" legislation simply recognizes as an aggrevating factor a motive of generalized hate for a class of persons, whom to the perpetrator the victim represents, and who the perpetrator means to strike a blow against in general through the particular act of injuring a handy individual whom the perpetrator believes is of that class.

[mitchtv]

7. ask him if tagging a garage should be treated the same as

Painting a Swastika on a synagogue/ they're both vandalism. Is butning a cross on public property the same as a bonfire?

[provis99]

8. Hate crimes should definitely be illegal, and hate crimes bills should be passed

For all the blather that it is punishing "thoughts", how is it really different than the RICO statues, or criminal conspiracy laws, both of which also punish "thought", not "action". Yet no one complains about criminal conspiracy laws.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. Hate crimes are an act of terrorism against a whole community

The distinction between, say, robbing a man and burning a cross on his front lawn is one of scope. The robbery targets a single man. The crossburning targets the man and his community. Likewise, the distinction between spray-painting a gang sign on the side of a synagogue and spray-painting a swastika: one is an act of vandalism, the other is typically meant as a threat against the members of that synagogue and others in the Jewish community.

I assert that it is reasonable to have an enhanced punishment when the the victim is a whole community, much in the same way that someone who detonates a bomb and injures ten people should receive a stiffer penalty than if only one person had been injured.

[Rhythm]

12. I came here to say exactly this...

But you beat me to it. :hug:

[Sandaasu]

10. Hate crime laws guarantee that "gay panic" type defenses cannot work.

Among other good reasons for it. I was against such laws in the past, but after giving it a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that they're a good thing.

[littlebit]

11. I was attacked

coming out of a bar 14 years ago. I was in a coma for almost five weeks. The idiots that attacked me got probation. If there was a hate crime law maybe they would have gone to prison.

[Prism]

13. I'm somewhat against them

My main concern tends to be on First Amendment grounds. If hate crimes are on the books, and incitement to commit a crime becomes a crime unto itself, then we start going down that slippery path to hate speech. What, then, qualifies as hate speech or incitement to commit a hate crime? The Phelps ilk? Merely quoting the Bible or Koran?

Canada keeps stumbling over these speech issues, and as a First Amendment absolutist, I just don't want to see America going down that path.

Allow hate motives into sentencing consideration? By all means. But I'm very hesitant about backing separate legislation along those lines. I think it's a bad precendent. The intentions are good, and I do understand the logic that a hate crime is intended to terrorize entire groups, but it's too sticky and too ripe for abuse and too likely to lead to forms of government oppression we didn't intend.

One example I read some time ago involved a criminal trial where the prosecution went on a fishing expedition going back years to find evidence that the defendant may have once made a bigoted statement to a neighbor uninvolved in the case. Seems a little crazy to me.

Reasonable people can disagree.

[Creideiki]

14. Incitement to commit a crime is already a crime

And there are limits on free speech.

Honestly, I don't want hate speech laws, but I do want hate crimes laws. The former is a nice way to tell who to avoid in every aspect of personal life. The latter is an act of terrorism against a community.

[Prism]

15. I didn't want to speak out of turn

I know incitement to commit, say, murder is considered a crime. I just wasn't sure if incitement to commit a hate crime fell under the same category. I've never read of an American case regarding it, but I know Canada has had incidents where religion and speech have intersected because of hate crimes and the speech codes that have developed in their wake. Granted American and Canadian laws and constitutions are different, but it seems in countries where hate crimes laws are on the books, speech restrictions follow soon after.

The argument could and has been made in those countries that using religious texts in public fora to condemn homosexuality falls perilously close to the boundaries of incitement. I'm not much a fan of religion, but I get very uneasy when governments start sticking their noses into religious belief. Once you set a precedent for the state to dictate what is and is not acceptable religious speech, well, that's a power that can be turned against just about any belief system. It's a power I certainly don't want the right-wing to possess, even if the original precedent and application were put to use to protect groups I feel might warrant the protection.

I suppose I'm making the slippery slope argument. Hate crimes to hate speech to government censorship of belief systems. That is the path several other countries are wobbling towards, and I really don't want to see that in an America founded on free expression.

The ACLU eventually supported the current legislation bouncing around Congress because speech and association protections were written in to disqualify bigotry/statements unrelated to the crime. That's a positive step towards alleviating my concerns. However, it's that incitement bit that ultimately leaves me in the "slightly opposed" camp (not to mention many state laws don't have those protections).

If the current hate crimes bill becomes law, I'm really not going to be upset. However, if it passes and then we start imitating Canada and several European countries on the expression issue, I'm going to have major, major problems with it.

[mitchtv]

16. The subject is moot, there are are already hate crime statutes

The question is, should Gays be added, and not you per se, but many are well aware of this fact and oppose expanding that protection(that already exists ) to Gays.

[readmoreoften]

17. Then 1st Degree, 2nd Degree, and 3rd Degree murder should be done away with.

Who cares if it's premeditated! You're just as dead!
Who cares if it was in the heat of passion! Just as dead!
Who cares if it was an accident! Just as dead!

All crimes are not hate crimes. Some crimes are accidents. The real word for Hate Crime is genocide--trying to get rid of a category of people. Hate crimes terrorize groups of people, not just the person harmed. It is aimed at a community, not an individual.

[bullwinkle428]

18. Hate crimes are ACTS OF TERRORISM - they are committed specifically

with the intent of scaring an entire community! Can he explain how a bank robbery is a "hate crime" if "all crimes are hate crimes"? :crazy: