Posted by
Playful Walrus on Thursday, October 22, 2009 7:05:41 PM
Associated Press writer Jim Abrams has the story on newly approved hate crimes legislation. The misleading headline says "Congress Extends Hate Crime Protections to Gays".
Physical attacks on people based on their sexual orientation will join the list of federal hate crimes in a major expansion of the civil rights-era law Congress approved Thursday and sent to President Barack Obama.
If this is truly written and will be enforced as prosecuting people for attacks based on sexual orientation, than it applies just as much to heterosexual people as it does to homosexual people, correct? We'll see it if actually works out that way. But I thought physical attacks were already illegal?
The measure is named for Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student murdered 11 years ago.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren't his murderers convicted, and rightly so? So it isn't like this law closes a loophole. Murder and assault are illegal already.
To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill the Senate approved 68-29. The House passed the defense bill earlier this month.
This is why I take it with grain of salt when someone says something like "My opponent voted against funding our troops." What else was in the bill the opponent voted down?
Conservatives have opposed it, arguing that it creates a special class of victims.
Those who harm others in anything other than an act of self defense or correctly carrying out military action or law enforcement should be prosecuted, regardless of the identity of the victim.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, hailed the bill as "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Too many in our community have been devastated by hate violence."
As opposed to "love violence"? Hey, Joe - what about domestic and date violence in "your community"?
The measure also provides federal grants to help state and local governments prosecute hate crimes and funds programs to combat hate crimes committed by juveniles.
Why? Why should money be taken away from, say California taxpayers, and given to Mississippi prosecutors?
The FBI says more than half of reported hate crimes are motivated by racial bias. Next most frequent are crimes based on religious bias, at around 18 percent, and sexual orientation, at 16 percent.
So even though religion was supposedly already a protected class, more crimes were being committed based on a victim's religion rather than the "unprotected" sexual orientation category. So more people are highly motivated to attack someone based on their religion rather than sexual orientation? (The number of criminals is more relevant to the statistic than the number of potential victims.) Something else to notice - way more than 16% of the population disapproves of or is downright disgusted at the thought of homosexual behavior, and a far higher percentage of that understands that marriage united the sexes. Yet these people obviously aren't going out and beating people up or destroying their property. Racism is rather weak these days, and yet it apparently motivates far more crimes than disapproval of sexual orientation. So the the "community" is already way ahead in this game.
"Nothing in this legislation diminishes an American's freedom of religion, freedom of speech or press or the freedom to assemble," said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. "Let me be clear. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act targets acts, not speech."
We'll see.
Bottom line: thugs need to be prosecuted and incarcerated, regardless of their suspected motivations. If local or state law enforcement isn't dealing correctly with the criminal, then the victim - not other people who share a characteristic who were not assaulted - is having his or her rights violated.