Beating could be anti-Mormon hate crime

[why_me]

It seems that a mormon missionary was singled out for being a mormon a beaten. It could be a hate crime because the attacker specifically referred to the young man as a mormon.

eastvalleytribune.com/story/113127

It is rather unfortunate to have a missionary beaten by bigots. But then again, it is to be expected. Mormonism has been getting some negative pubicity lately through a political candidate and the catholic shrine incident, not to mention the internet where mormonism is quite often trashed and harangued.

And yet, mormons are basically good people.

 

[majick275]

you make huge twists and turns in your line of reasoning here. this is a crime. it is an assault and should be prosecuted as such.

this is not because people on the internet denounce false doctrines of mormonism. this is because we have criminals in our society who do bad things. this is a bad thing. there is no excuse.

 

[why_me]

you make huge twists and turns in your line of reasoning here. this is a crime. it is an assault and should be prosecuted as such.

this is not because people on the internet denounce false doctrines of mormonism. this is because we have criminals in our society who do bad things. this is a bad thing. there is no excuse.

But they particular stressed the young man’s religion and that makes all the difference. It was a hate crime.

 

[RebeccaJ]

It seems that a mormon missionary was singled out for being a mormon a beaten. It could be a hate crime because the attacker specifically referred to the young man as a mormon.

eastvalleytribune.com/story/113127

It is rather unfortunate to have a missionary beaten by bigots. But then again, it is to be expected. Mormonism has been getting some negative pubicity lately through a political candidate and the catholic shrine incident, not to mention the internet where mormonism is quite often trashed and harangued.

And yet, mormons are basically good people.

Very thin “evidence” for the claimed motivation.

 

[why_me]

Very thin “evidence” for the claimed motivation.

The man knocked him to the ground, began punching him and was joined by another man, also in dark clothes and ski mask, according to police.

During the pummeling, one of the attackers cursed at him and specifically referred to him as a Mormon, police said.

I think that this would imply a hate crime since the man mentioned the missionary’s religion, not to mention cursing at him. I see no mention of a robbery.

 

[twopekinguys]

When I read the article, it said “possible hate crime”. Hate crime laws vary from state to state.

No one should be beaten for their religous beliefs, but unfortunately, saying the word mormon would not automatically make it fall into the hate crime category. Usually, perpetrators of crimes don’t tend to be complimentary while they’re beating someone up.

 

[J_C]

a telling quote from within the cited article:

"Don Evans, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona, said Saturday he was unaware of the attack and had never heard of anything like it in the United States."

i might take from this that attcks against the missionaries are rare. this lack of persecultion might suggest an absence of true faith, if you were to take to heart the words of Jesus who promised that persecution would be the lot of those who believe in Him and follow his commandments.

also i see no mention of witnesses. apparently the only witness to the attack besides the attackers is the missionary, so we have only his word that they called him the dread name mormonn. not saying that he is to be disbelieved but he refused to allow his name to be used in the report, so it is just as possible that he fell down the stairs after a night of heavy drinking.

but we will have to await the appearance of the videotape on utube that the attackers must have taken, in which they hoot and holler while carrying out the desecration.

 

[RebeccaJ]

The man knocked him to the ground, began punching him and was joined by another man, also in dark clothes and ski mask, according to police.

During the pummeling, one of the attackers cursed at him and specifically referred to him as a Mormon, police said.

I think that this would imply a hate crime since the man mentioned the missionary’s religion, not to mention cursing at him. I see no mention of a robbery.

Mesa has a very large population of Mormons, why single out this one guy?

 

[twopekinguys]

Quoting from the same article, “About 500 Mormon missionaries work in the Valley and northern Arizona at any given time, he said.”

That works out to .002 percent. (not even 1 percent) Hardly a crime wave of persecution against mormons in that area.

Why is it we take reports from the media as “true” when they support our position, and “false” when they don’t? I remember the mormons blasting the media over the Shrine desecration, for blowing it out of proportion, etc.

 

[ibkc]

But they particular stressed the young man’s religion and that makes all the difference. It was a hate crime.

Whatever the motivation, it was a terrible thing to happen, and the perpetrators need to be caught and prosecuted.

 

[J_C]

Whatever the motivation, it was a terrible thing to happen, and the perpetrators need to be caught and prosecuted.

agreed but coming on the heels of whyme’s handwringing over the mormin desecration of a Cathilic shrine, this posting of his i would suspect is the result of some late night trolling of obscure newsarticles and grapsing for straws.

again, once the video tape of this assault turns up on utube then I would be more willing to compare it to the earlier event. in the meantime all we have is a short report of an assault with no witnesses in a heavily mormin part of the world, and the only mormon connection is that the boy claimed one of the assailants said the word :MORMON" while committing the crime. they have so far made no arrests. this story is very very different from the other one, in which mormon missionaries filmed themselves desecrating a Ctaholic shrine and then posting the film on the internets. I could be wrong, but am i the only one who thinks that a comparison is whyme’s purpose here?

 

[ibkc]

in the meantime all we have is a short report of an assault with no witnesses in a heavily mormin part of the world, and the only mormon connection is that the boy claimed one of the assailants said the word :MORMON" while committing the crime. they have so far made no arrests. this story is very very different from the other one, in which mormon missionaries filmed themselves desecrating a Ctaholic shrine and then posting the film on the internets. I could be wrong, but am i the only one who thinks that a comparison is whyme’s purpose here?

I agree, but the comparison is such a weak one that there really isn’t anything more to say than “I hope they catch the jerks who did it.” If they do catch them and they turn out to be part of a roving gang of Catholics who specifically target Mormons, I’d be more than surprised, but I certainly wouldn’t make any excuses for them.

I will add here that the FBI tracks so-called “hate crimes” and releases stats every year. The most recent year for which stats have been released is 2006. The main page for these states is here. You can follow links to tables which break down the crimes by bias. The following table is very useful for our discussion:

fbi.gov/ucr/hc2006/table7.html

Here we see that as far as religiously-motivated hate crimes go, the LDS church is not even a blip on the radar screen of violent bigots. Jews are far and away the most likely to be targeted by hate crimes in the US, followed very distantly by Muslims and then Catholics and Protestants. Comparatively, the Mormons seem to have it pretty good.

 

[J_C]

fbi.gov/ucr/hc2006/table7.html

Here we see that as far as religiously-motivated hate crimes go, the LDS church is not even a blip on the radar screen of violent bigots. Jews are far and away the most likely to be targeted by hate crimes in the US, followed very distantly by Muslims and then Catholics and Protestants. Comparatively, the Mormons seem to have it pretty good.

mmmm… confirms my earlier stated impression, which is that mormons are practically never the victums of religious hate crime.

i suspect the main reason is that they are going out of there way to be polite, nonconfrontational. so far for instance i have not seen mormons take on any antisocial behaviours such as protesting abortion at planned paretnhood, at least not in my community.

another reason may be that they are much smaller than their footprint. their claims to be the fastest growing relgion notwithstanding, their wards in my town which is blessed with a high number of mormons because of its western location in the US do not appear to be heavily used judging from numbers of cars in parking lots, which i have been noticeing. the buildings moreover are small. the temple here looks deserted every time i drive by it, which is often. i’m beginning to think it is a front and when you look at the temple building it apears huge from the front but when you go back around to the parking lot side you can see that it is actually rather small.

so i am getting the feeeling that mormons have become good at seeming bigger than they are. which is a form of good news from my Catholic point of view, and i mean no disrespect to our good mormong friends in saying this, it is only my honest and forthright opinion.

 

[ibkc]

Also, the Mormons tend to keep to themselves, geographically. Towns in the Western states which are 90% or more Mormon obviously aren’t going to see a lot of anti-Mormon violence simply because there aren’t enough non-Mormons to perpetrate the violence.

The hate crime statistics though are interesting in the context of this thread, though. The attack on this young man was bizarre and very bad, but even if it is shown to be a hate crime, it cannot be interpreted as part of a larger problem of violence and bigotry against Mormons, as whyme tried to do in his first post. Clearly it is a very isolated incident.

 

[majick275]

But they particular stressed the young man’s religion and that makes all the difference. It was a hate crime.

and what does that mean to you? if someone is beaten just as random violence then they aren’t as hurt because it wasn’t a “hate crime”? I have a problem with the hate crime label. assault is assault and should be prosecuted vigorously.

 

[twopekinguys]

As much as i hate to throw someones words back at them, I need to in this case. On the Vandalism thead (shrine desecration), the big defense that was used, was What “proof” do you have?

What “Proof” is there the guy used the word mormon?

 

[RebeccaJ]

As much as i hate to throw someones words back at them, I need to in this case. On the Vandalism thead (shrine desecration), the big defense that was used, was What “proof” do you have?

What “Proof” is there the guy used the word mormon?

Or even evidence that the missionary is telling the truth about what happened.

 

[why_me]

Mesa has a very large population of Mormons, why single out this one guy?

I think that it is difficult to understand why anyone is singled out in such cases. The missionaries were seen, the men knew where they lived and one missionary was beaten.

Crazy things happen all the time.

 

[why_me]

Or even evidence that the missionary is telling the truth about what happened.

The same can be said about anyone who is attacked and no witnesses can be found. I have heard such comments about rape also. It can go like this: Or even evidence that the woman is telling the truth about what happened.

But yes, people do lie. Better though to give victims the better of the doubt.

 

[why_me]

agreed but coming on the heels of whyme’s handwringing over the mormin desecration of a Cathilic shrine, this posting of his i would suspect is the result of some late night trolling of obscure newsarticles and grapsing for straws.

No, there is a thread about it on the mormonapologetic site. That is where I got it from.

Recently, there was a thread on this section of the forum about mormon or JW missionaries coming to the door. It is here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=129547

I remember this mormon follow saying to me that when he was on his mission to Holland and Belguim, he had an interesting experience. He and his partner were knocking on doors wanting to talk to people about the lds faith. It was a strong catholic town. Most of the people who let them in were polite. They offered them hot chocolate and a piece of pastry. This went on for a couple of days in that area. Finally someone told them that the catholic priest told the catholics in the area to invite the mormon boys in and be friendly to them. One member of the parish complained about the mormon missionaries to the priest. The priest asked this parishioner if she was strong in her faith. She said yes. The priest said ‘what do you have to fear then?’

The priest also said: They are only doing what they think that god wants them to do. But don’t give them coffee because they don’t drink coffee. Rather offer them hot chocolate and be nice to them.

Well those missionaries had many cups of hot chocolate. Now I have to admire that priest. He showed some good christian spirit.