In 2007, latest statistics, over 1,450 hate crimes were committed against gays. This does not really measure the actual number because many gays are closeted and feel that they cannot call the police. Thus, the number represents serious crimes, normally involving injuries. I personally have two friends in wheel chairs for life because of queer bashing, and a friend of mine, a young banker, was beaten to death by five high school students who found him walking in a gay area of Houston.
On October 28 President Obama signed the new Hate Crimes Act, fought against for years by Republicans who used the term "special rights." True, a crime is a crime, and all should be punished equally. The fact is that crimes against gays across the country are not always treated equally because of the vast number of conservatives judges. Often a perpetrator claims, "He propositioned me" or "He groped me," and the judge dismisses the case or gives a light sentence. Remember how blacks have been treated in courtrooms.?
Also, local law enforcement often take these cases lightly. In many places the police try to ignore certain cases because of their prejudices and give little time for investigation. As to this legislation, by providing federal officials the authority to investigate and prosecute cases in which violence occurs because of victims' real or perceived sexualorientation, gender identity, gender, or disability, the "Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act" will significantly strengthen federal response to these horrific crimes. Thus, more cases will be given the attention they deserve. Already, such protection exists when crimes are committed on the grounds of race, religion, and national origin.
The bill does not increase the penalty but allows for more thorough investigation, preventing those prejudiced against gay or blacks from minimizing the crime as so often happens).
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Comments: 80
I admire you for your post and position on "Hate Crime Bill" and your actions for Justice and Decency.
There are too many scoundrels that are nothing but Cowards and Terrorists.
Thanks for your presence.
Those bullies are filled with Inferiority Complexes, and are LOSERS and FAILED LIVES, very often they come from Family Dysfunctionality.
Raciality.com
Vicente
Your personal experiences aside Leo, what difference does it mean to a victim if killed by someone with hate in their heart or not? Does a victim's gender/sexual preference/ethnic background really deserve additional attention in a trial of any sort? Those kind of questions do lend themselves to an idea that we are creating classes of people who are more of a victim in a crime than others in that same sort of crime because of background.
Here is now a law which allows feelings and impressions to be entered into evidence. If that were true, most of the commenter’s here on Gather could be prosecuted under this law!
Sorry, the Constitution did not warrant setting up groups for special legal protection then or now. While in practical purposes when originally wrote it did favor free white males, that changed over time to incorporate to encompass all as it should be with equal protection under the law.
I don't disagree that crimes specifically against people for their beliefs or backgrounds aren't chilling but as I again repeat, this sets up for special attention a group of people. That does not encourage a change in social mores but encourages hatred for groups now deemed worthy of that special attention. Do you actually think this helps change by effectively saying these people are different?
The law can be a very blunt tool and this one is no different because there is no pretense of treating all alike.
How could that possibly be so, given that everybody has a gender, a race, an ethnicity, a sexual orientation, etc. ?
If you are killed because you are a heterosexual white male, that can be prosecuted as a hate crime the same as if you were assaulted because you were a homosexual, a Christian, Jewish, etc. So who exactly is getting the special attention?
If what you say is true Wil, why does the law refer to homosexuals in particular or why was it pushed so hard by only some people/groups to begin with?
What groups is being singled out by this law, Charles? The only one I can find would be "United States Servicemen" and their immediate families.
"If what you say is true Wil, why does the law refer to homosexuals in particular or why was it pushed so hard by only some people/groups to begin with?"
Are we talking about the same law, Charles? The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act? Nowhere in that law does it mention homosexuals in particular. It includes "offenses involving actual or perceived race, color, religion or national origin" and "actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity or disability."
The law also deals with very specific kinds of actions -- causing bodily injury or attempting to cause bodily injury, kidnapping or attempted kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse or attempted aggravated sexual abuse, or attempt to kill.
It doesn't make it a crime to hate somebody. It doesn't make it a crime to say you hate somebody. It doesn't make it a crime to tell other people that they ought to hate the same people you hate. It specifically exempts emotional and psychological harm, so it doesn't make it a crime to make a person miserable, as long as you don't resort to physical violence to do so.
The bill simply adds gays to other groups already covered: crimes based on religious affiliation, race, disability, etc. Why should gays not be treated the same way these groups are?
The Federal Government should have powers to intervene in some Miscarriages of Justice.
I don't believe in "State's Rights" over everything, including INJUSTICE and BASTARDY !
For example six coward scoundrels, that are football players in Shenandoah Pennsylvania, on July of 2008.
They kill a shorter man by kicking him.
"While the men yelled racial epithets at Ramirez, they punched and kicked his head and body so severely that he lay foaming at the mouth with two skull fractures.
Once Ramirez was on the ground he was continually kicked until brain matter leaked from his skull."
He was killed by being from a different race or ethnic.
The six bastards are scott free now !
Many gays, lesbians or transgender have been brutally killed, you now why.
And the bastards that killed them are now as free as vultures flying in the sky and waiting for the next victim.
Raciality.com
Vicente Duque
Hate crimes generally occur in the presence of name calling and epithets.
It is quite different to be kicked to death because you have done something to anger another - than to be kicked to death just for your mere existence.
I agree the government should stay out of the abortion business, but the problem is they ARE. They are supporting it through Planned Parenthood.
PP does more abortions in the US than all other abortion providers combined. The government supports PP. My money goes to this organization that promotes abortion and performs abortions. To say that taxpayer money isn't used to fund abortions is a lie. Do you really expect me to believe there is some sort of division between "pregnancy related services" and abortion "services." Does PP books actually show a divisionin their books. And even if it is true, money PP would have spent on "pregnacy related services" is now used for abortions because Joe Q. Taxpayer is picking up the tab for the "pregnacy related serivece". Either way my money is funding abortons.
"Abortion is a private decision made by women and their medical professionals."
If this is true no man should ever have to pay child support. If a woman and her medical professional chooses to let that "mass of cell tissue" live to full term they should have to pay for their decision. Otherwise it is taxation without representation for the father.
"When the government intervenes, nothing good comes from it."
Couldn't agree with you more. I just wish more people would apply this to healthcare. Abortion is not healthcare.
I don't wish mothers to kill their children regardless if it is illegal or government funded. Both are wrong.
You simply refuse to belief that life in the womb is sacred.
The government can't effectively run social security or medicare. Why would anyone expect anything different with a so-called "public option"?
The Constitution protects all life including our "posterity".
I respect you, but completely disagree.
Just because "abortion has always been with us" doesn't make it right. We've always had rape and murder, but we that's no justification for accepting them.
Acceptance of prostitution, suicide, and abortion are all indications that life is NOT considered sacred.
Life is the Abortion issue. There is no scientific reason to believe that abortion does not end a sacred human life.
When in your opinion Joe does life began and what evidence do you have to support it?
Not willing to answer.
Even if a person actually claims to not know when life begans, should they not give life the benefit of the doubt?
So you wouldn't mind if we toss out the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, since it was piggybacked with a bunch of other protections (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc.)?
I hear you, Joe. I've seen it too many times to count.
And yet clearly based on this "piggybacking" complaint, I guess we ought to throw out the whole Constitution, since each different part of it wasn't considered and ratified individually.
"What we have here is a failure to understand how our legislative process works. And, we are also dealing with people who think that when they don't get their way that the politicians aren't performing their duties well."
In some cases, I'm sure that's true, Joe. In others, I think it's simply a fear that the government is going to come after them because they hate people.
And you know that you don't really care about this piggybacking thing, and your real beef is that you hate homosexuals and you don't approve of any law that makes it illegal to hate them, assault them, or kill them. You know that you want to kill as many homosexuals as you possibly can, and that you want to do so with the approval of the government. You know that you'd like to see mass public executions of homosexuals conducted not only by the government, but also by religious groups and even by otherwise unaffiliated groups of concerned individuals who, like you, hate homosexuals and believe that every single one of them ought to be killed.
Well, maybe you don't really know all those things, but since you seem to think you're entitled to tell me what I know, I thought it was only fair that I return the favor.
"You know that's not the same thing, Wil. We're talking about an entire bill - the hate crimes bill - being attached to something that has nothing at all to do with "hate crimes" - one about the military/defense."
And I'm saying that I believe that it's very much the same thing, Marilyn. Several of the amendments include several different rights bundled up together, or "piggybacking", as you prefer to put it. If you don't want to consider the "piggybacking" going on in the First Amendment, how about the Fifth? I mean, what in the world does eminent domain have to do with protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination?
So by your standards, the Founding Fathers were just another bunch of "idiots in Washington" trying to pull a fast one on the American people, right Marilyn?
Surely, Marilyn, you do see that your "piggybacking" argument is flawed.
"And this matters to you why?"
Why shouldn't it matter to me? I've been involved in the debate about hate crime legislation for many years, Marilyn. Often in opposition to various proposed pieces of legislation, due to First Amendment issues. I believe this legislation deals with those First Amendment issues a lot better than previous proposals. It matters to me because I grew up not far from where James Byrd, Jr. was murdered. Why does it matter to you, Marilyn?
If it's a bill they don't understand, then it shouldn't be law. If it's a bill for prayer in school, screw everyone else who disagrees!
I mean, their argument that a law should apply the same to everyone is just plain stupid. In that case, we wouldn't have SELF DEFENSE for murders.
Doesn't that involve the INTENT of the crime?
How about sexual assualt? Should we even bother with THOUGHTS and FEELINGS when it comes to these laws Marliyn and Linda? Maybe everyone who is charged and convicted of sexual assault should serve the same sentence?
I am so over these typical conservatives blogs from typical insensitive self-righteous idiots.
Looks like their plans have been foiled so now they resort to whining.