Note: As of July 3, 2009, only the RSS feeds on this blog will be updated so I can focus my energies on my 
The compromise legislation signed into law on Mar. 16 by Gov. Jon Huntsman allows the impact of a crime on a community to be considered as an aggravating factor during the sentencing phase of a trial.
The compromise was reached after nearly a decade of effort, after a 1992 hate-crimes law was deemed unenforceable. Conservatives argued that increasing penalties for crimes against people victimized because of their race, religion or sexual orientation created special protections for minority groups, while punishing perpetrators for their thoughts.
The argument made by Utah conservatives is a popular one with politicians -- and I've never understood why reporters let it go unquestioned. Potential Republican presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) takes a similar position (Here's an excellent Jeff Sharlet profile of Brownback that I've been wanting to mention ever since it came out.)
Brownback has actively worked against hate crime legislation for years. In an interview published on a Focus on the Family website a few years ago, he explained his reasons:
"I do not believe it is good, nor do I believe it necessary, for us to pass hate-crimes legislation — which is thought legislation," he said. "We should punish the crime. We shouldn't try to ascertain the thought going on at the time of the crime."
The whole area of hate crimes is fraught with all kinds of problems, according to Brownback, who was an attorney prior to joining the Senate.
"There's been great concern — and I think legitimate concern," he said, "that hate-crimes legislation will be used against legitimate speech in some places; where people speak out of their beliefs and could then be charged with a hate crime."
Brownback said this particular bill doesn't provide for persecution of Christians who are critical of homosexuality — but it may open the door to it at some point.
Here are the questions I wish journalists would ask:
If motivation or thought processes cannot be considered in charging someone with a crime, why do we have legal distinctions between murder (killing with intent) and manslaughter (unlawful killing without intent)?
How can it be argued that a hate crimes law creates special rights when everyone is covered by it? In other words, under existing hate crimes laws that refer to victimization on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation, people can be prosecuted for attacking someone because they are perceived to be white, Christian and straight. And indeed, the FBI hate crimes report collects data on such crimes.
Finally, what evidence is there that hate crimes laws have affected anyone's right to express their beliefs? Existing laws have not been used against the neo-Confederate movement in this country, which regularly trumpets views that are anti-black, anti-Semitic and anti-gay, often with religious justification. Similarly, anti-Muslim comments by Christian evangelists such as The Rev. Franklin Graham or Min. Louis Farrakhan's criticisms of Jews have incited controversy, but no legal action. So what is the basis for the anti-hate crime argument?
/hate crimes/,News,journalism,civil rights
Posts
3 comments:
Excellent points ProfessorKim. I may link to this article at some point. Thanks for sharing your insights.
1. You're conflating distnictions based on intent and distinctions based on motivation. I think it's fairly incontrovertible to say that the distinction between someone who kills accidentally and someone who kills intentionally is dramatically more significant and more important than the distinction between someone who kills because he dislikes an individual and someone who kills because he dislikes an entire race.
2. Good point.
3. I believe he's confusing hate crime laws and hate speech laws, the latter of which actually have been used to silence certain types of legitimate (in the sense of not being intended to incite violence) speech in Europe.
Thanks for your comments. A couple of thoughts:
I don't know that I can agree with your first point. Hitler killed because he disliked entire "races" -- and that was much more significant than the killings he ordered of people he personally disliked. In addition, hate killings aren't just killings based on dislike of someone because of some presumed aspect of their identity. They are often acts of terror directed at anyone who shares that identity.
3. If you're right, and Brownback is confused, that doesn't speak well for him, since he's both a US lawmaker and an attorney. Surely he would know that one difference between the US and many European countries (inclding the UK) is that the US has a First Amendment.
Post a Comment