I will sigh with with relief if the proposed bill becomes a law. But will the people who benefit from this level the playing field for others? The interaction of most non-colored Southerners with people of color itself is a hatecrime. Everyday.

It is documented that many officers in the Nazi Army were of same-sexual orientation. Opression of another subset of society will not decrease because of a bill.

If this bill does pass, will the everyday mistreatment of those slightly different from those who hold the status quo,change? Of course not. Will those policemen who come around in training see a person different from themselves for what they are? Will the parents who teach hatred in their homes everyday change their attitudes?

Not for Some time to come.

ZeroPointField (and anyone else who comes along agreeing with them),

you seem to have missed the point of this bill. Hate crimes based on skin color were already federally recongized; this legislation is to extend that protection to GLBT populations. The reason that the civil rights movement for African Americans occured before virtually any progress was made for gays and lesbians is because it is still more acceptable to have a different skin color than to be white and homosexual. What you said would be the equivalent of my asking if the civil rights movement meant that African Americans would no longer be homophobic; that obviously didn't happen.

You said:

"It is documented that many officers in the Nazi Army were of same-sexual orientation."

It is also documented that many of them were in fact of Jewish descent. That didn't keep homosexuals and jews from being murdered; and in fact, to check history, Hitler had the homosexuals in his organization purged early on (pre-holocaust) during the so-called 'night of the long knives.' It is well-documented that the majority of Nazi's were in fact heterosexual; does that have some significance?

If you want your own movement that will address your own issues with legislation, then by all means go create it; but don't gripe because a population that only just had laws finally repealed against its love-making a few years ago are still trying to ascend to full equality.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

It seems like few people really understand what hate crimes do. They simply increase the penalty for existing crimes (assault, etc.) if the crime was performed because of the victim's membership in some protected class. I wholeheartedly think that homosexuals should be treated by the law exactly as everyone else is, which is why I oppose this, and all hate crime legislation. Simply put, it would allow for irrelevant enhancement of puninshment. Let me explain, with some background information:

All crimes have two elements:
(1) an act (actus reas) and
(2) a mental state (mens rea).

Changing either one will change the crime, and therefore its punishment.

For example, if I
(1) Kill Vinnie,
(2) intentionally and with premeditation
Then I have just committed Murder I. I am going to the slammer or chair.

But, if I
(1) Kill Vinnie,
(2) unintentionally and not negligently
Then I have just committed manslaughter. My punishment will be less severe. The idea is that intent to kill is more evil, and thus more worthy of punishment than killing accidentally.

So, you can see how important mental state is to forming a crime. Now, to illustrate how hate crime laws work:

If I
(1) Severy beat Vinnie
(2) intentionally and with premeditation because he likes cats
Then I have committed plain ol' criminal assault.

But if I
(1) Severely beat Vinnie
(2) intentionally and with premeditation because I don't like Italian Catholics
I have committed a hate crime, because race and religion are protected classes. The argument behind these laws is that the intent to kill someone for these reasons is more evil, and therefore more worthy of punishment than the intent to kill for some other reason, such as if he likes cats.

Do you think one is more evil than the other? For a less cartoonish example, imagine I kill Pedro. If I did it because I want less Latinos in the neighborhood, is that more evil than doing it because I want to date his wife?

No, these reasons are equally arbitrary and evil. Let us not muddle the law with these hate crime laws. The people who committed that horrible crime against Mr. Shepard are guilty of murder, plane and simple, and that's enough.

Aren't there laws that make it a more serious crime to kill a cop than it is to kill me? What do you think about those laws?
I ask because many people who are opposed to hate crime laws are okay with laws that make it more serious to kill a cop.

In response to correctivelens' libertarian-esque responseI have to make a clarification.

It's simplistic to think that a hate crime is only committed against an individual when, in fact, it is committed against the cultural community to which that individual belongs as well.

Hate crimes are committed because of a perceived transgression that a member of a minority commits. For example, it could be a black man who dates a white woman, two gay guys holding hands in public or a Latina holding a job in a community where many whites are unemployed. The purpose of a hate crime, therefore, is to tell the black man to learn his "place," the gay guys to go back into the closet and the Latina to go back to Mexico (even if she's American-born).

Whether the purpetrator is consciously thinking that at the time or not, the intent in every case is to instill fear so that minorities won't exercise their legal rights or attempt to seek equality.

Hate crimes involve the use of violence to achieve political ends, which also happens to be the definition of terrorism. The political end, in this case, is to prevent the group to which the victim belongs from asserting itself, seeking equality or overcoming oppression.

Anyone who complains that hate crime laws is ignorant at best and, at worst, complicit in them.

There is more to crime than just the person who does it. There is all the rest of society to consider. We punish religion-motivated crime more than those motivated by misofelia because religious hate is a force in our society that needs to be kept down.

I doubt anyone here really wants a law regulating the thoughts in their heads. I'm much too distrustful of the "legal" system as it stands now, I sure don't want some government shmuck telling me that my thoughts are now illegal, or that the crime I just committed is "special" because of my thoughts about (insert group here).

Who decides which ideas are verboten? Who decides which classes deserve special protection? This government?! Where does that end? Special protection for registered republicans?

A crime is a crime, period.

From 1984:
"All crimes begin with a thought. So, if you control thought, you can control crime. Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, Thoughtcrime is death.... The essential crime that contains all others in itself."
- George Orwell, 1984

Regulating thought is a very slippery slope. Do you want YOURS regulated? This is still America and for now our thoughts are still free. Adding a new "thought" dimension to our already oppressive legal system is a stupid idea that sounds like a dream come true for fascist authoritarians that currently inhabit the executive. I'm surprised they are taking so long to enact it. Perhaps a ruse to satisfy their "base", but I expect a last minute "gift" to the dems and then comes that awful moment of recognition.

From South Park ;-)
"If somebody kills somebody, it's a crime, but if somebody kills somebody of a different race, it's a hate crime. And we think that that is a savage hypocrisy, because all crimes are hate crimes. If a man beats another man because that man was sleeping with his wife, is that not a hate crime? If a person vandalizes a government building, is it not because of his hate for the government? The motivation for a crime shouldn't affect the sentencing. It is time to stop splitting people into groups. All hate crime laws do is support the idea that blacks are different from whites, that homosexuals are different, that we aren't the same. But instead we should all be treated the same, with the same laws and the same punishments for the same crimes. For in that way, Cartman can be freed from prison and we will have a chance to win the sledding race on Thursday!"
- Stan from South Park
Episode 4X01: Cartman's Silly Hate Crime

Vlad is exactly right. "Hate Crime" is a misnomer. What we call "hate crimes" are actually a form of terrorism. They are violence focused at random members of a hated group with intent to intimidate and denigrate them all by "making an example" of one of them. Do you get this?

If a white man kills a black man because he slept with his wife, or stole his jacket, or just got in an angry drunken bar fight with him and guns got involved, that's not a hate crime, it's just a regular crime that happens to involve different groups as a coincidence.

If a white man kills a black man he doesn't even know just because he's black, ties his corpse to a tree and lights it on fire with a sign that says "n%$#ers get out and stay out!" as a means to scare black people away from moving into his neighborhood, that's a very different thing. That is what a hate crime is, and it is nothing less than domestic terrorism. It's a whole different level.

People who target by hate are threats to entire groups of people, not just individuals. And their crimes affect far more people than normal crimes, as well. But anyone who knows anything about terrorism knows that.

The problem is the name, hate crimes, which is confusing and inaccurate. They should call it what it is, domestic terrorism. Then there would be a lot fewer people misunderstanding and arguing against it.

Unless anyone out there thinks terrorism is nothing more than simple murder, that is.

I'm torn here, because if hate crimes apply to race and religion, I think that they definitely should be amended to include sexual orientation.

However, I do agree with those here who say that hate crime laws are, at the very least, problematic. It really does seem to be bringing intent and thought into the equation. (The law about killing cops, which I'm not sure I agree with anyway, does not require that the perpetrator killed the cop *because* he or she was a cop)

And kitty, I would argue that terrorism should be treated (under the law) as no different from other crimes. It's anti-terror laws that allow, for example, protestors of the Iraq war to be treated far worse than they should be, solely for their political views.

So in other words, yes, I think it's a slippery slope, and frankly I don't see it as a way to deter people from comitting these crimes in the first place.

"
If a white man kills a black man because he slept with his wife, or stole his jacket, or just got in an angry drunken bar fight with him and guns got involved, that's not a hate crime, it's just a regular crime that happens to involve different groups as a coincidence.

If a white man kills a black man he doesn't even know just because he's black, ties his corpse to a tree and lights it on fire with a sign that says "n%$#ers get out and stay out!" as a means to scare black people away from moving into his neighborhood, that's a very different thing. That is what a hate crime is, and it is nothing less than domestic terrorism. It's a whole different level."

But that has to do with the severity of the crime, which should be covered under the law without resorting to hate crimes legislation. It's the intent that hate crimes covers, and that's problematic.

I used to be against this simply because imo it treated certain groups as endangered species for one, which only fuels the fire. I also felt that there were enough laws on the books that would effectively prosecute perpetrators in these sorts of crimes. I felt that it was basing the severity of a crime on a motive.

But like anti-stalking laws, cyberbullying laws, and the like, I think that hate crime legislation simply makes it easier to fight this sort of thing.

So I think I've come around to the idea. Besides if anything a message needs to be sent to those who hate. If you attack someone simply because of their race, religion, gender, etc. You will pay. Instead of having separate laws against ethnic intimidation and the like, you have it all in one tidy package.

It never ceases to amaze me that those people who claim to oppose adding sexual orientation to hate crimes legislation always point out that there are already laws on the books covering all crimes..

Yet if you suggested rescinding the protection for categories like race or religion (especially religion), they'd be totally against that.

And thus they prove, that their opposition to adding sexual orientation is really based on their bigotry.

Look, how would you feel if your grandmother was mugged (which is theft) and the guy got say five years. The next court case was a guy who stole a gay guy's jacket (again theft), called him a 'f@g' when he was accosted and he gets eight years. I know this is very simplistic, but that is how our court system sometimes acts. It is already unfair and balanced against poor, uneducated and sometimes mentally unstable people (who are typically convicted of 'hate' crimes). Let's focus on using the court system on forcing issues of race and gender discrimination against the real offenders: big business and government. Then just maybe we can start to rehabilitate sexually oppressed and violent behavioural criminals back into society without a tag on their wrist which labels them bigot/racist/sexist/homophobe, etc.
I don't agree that people are born evil, they become that way. So at what point does that happen, and how can we limit it (because we will never fully prevent it)? By wasting our resources pushing more bills and legislation through the same system that seeks to prevent us all from being equal, we are distracted from those around us that are crying out for help. The worst is behind us in this country, they are on the run now so let's not start playing by their rules. Make up our own, and invite them to play...

"But like anti-stalking laws, cyberbullying laws, and the like, I think that hate crime legislation simply makes it easier to fight this sort of thing."

That's essentially the same argument around the PATRIOT act, and it's the same reason I oppose both.

Look, I understand the motive behind these laws, but it's not possible to legislate hate out of existence without resorting to laws that punish thoughts.

For the record, I also have a problem with "victim impact" statements for similar reasons. While I understand that families of loved ones are hurt when someone is murdered, I feel that it is unfair to anonymous victims. Should the murderer of a mother of three, for example, be treated differently than the murder of a homeless man? The law should be seen to treat everyone equally. I realize that can seem a little cold, but I think it's what they mean when they say that Justice is blind.

In general, I have a problem with any law that treats one victim differently from another.

It isn't at all surprising that hate crimes against gays and lesbians rose form 1996-2005. We have antigay sentiment rooted in our government. It is one of the conrner stones of the RNC. It still infuriates me when I hear or read of a radical right-wing religous zealot who claims that extending the same rights to same-sex couples, that heteosexual couples take for granted, in some way infringes upon the religious rights of the radical right. Just exactly whose rights are being infringed upon here? Is this just another case of the victimizer claming to be the victim?

"Yet if you suggested rescinding the protection for categories like race or religion (especially religion), they'd be totally against that."

I used to be against that also, because again, there are already laws on the books that prosecute that sort of thing.

You burn a cross on someone's lawn, that's arson right?

You paint a swastika on a synagogue, that's vandalism.

You beat someone because they're gay, that's assault and battery.

"And thus they prove, that their opposition to adding sexual orientation is really based on their bigotry."

I used to be opposed to any sort of hate crime legislation. Just because someone opposes it, doesn't mean they are complicit in hate crimes. It's unfair to suggest that. People that oppose it have a good point. It just seems like a redundant law. And in a way it is. But again, if it makes it easier to go after haters and hate groups, then so be it.