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emily47017
Guest
the topic of hate crimes legislation has come up on several different threads lately, so i thought i might clear up some misperceptions.
**hate crimes legislation will not make it illegal to speak out against homosexuality
**H.R. 1592 states:
"Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person— "
and:
“Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person—”
notice they say “bodily injury”. under this bill, it’s not a hate crime unless someone’s actually been assaulted.
similarly, the FBI states:
“A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.”
notice they say “criminal offense”. no form of speech in this country is criminal; all speech is protected under the first amendment.
it doesn’t single out people who have spoken against homosexuality in the past
H.R. 1592 states:
“In a prosecution for an offense under this section, evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense.”
so if an outspoken priest blows a gasket and beats up a gay man, his previous outspokenness isn’t going to be evidence against him. only if he was witnessed saying hateful things while he was assaulting the man, or was witnessed lying in wait for a victim outside a PFLAG rally, or spray-painted the body with hateful words or something of that nature, can it be used against him.
it doesn’t create any “special” classes of people
notice they don’t specify any classes of people. they don’t say that jews are protected and christians are not, only that if someone is attacked “because of” their religion, regardless of what their religion is, that can be considered a hate crime. if someone is attacked because they are heterosexual (it does happen, though a lot less frequently than vice versa) that’s still a hate crime.
**hate crimes legislation will not make it illegal to speak out against homosexuality
**H.R. 1592 states:
"Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person— "
and:
“Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person—”
notice they say “bodily injury”. under this bill, it’s not a hate crime unless someone’s actually been assaulted.
similarly, the FBI states:
“A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.”
notice they say “criminal offense”. no form of speech in this country is criminal; all speech is protected under the first amendment.
it doesn’t single out people who have spoken against homosexuality in the past
H.R. 1592 states:
“In a prosecution for an offense under this section, evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense.”
so if an outspoken priest blows a gasket and beats up a gay man, his previous outspokenness isn’t going to be evidence against him. only if he was witnessed saying hateful things while he was assaulting the man, or was witnessed lying in wait for a victim outside a PFLAG rally, or spray-painted the body with hateful words or something of that nature, can it be used against him.
it doesn’t create any “special” classes of people
notice they don’t specify any classes of people. they don’t say that jews are protected and christians are not, only that if someone is attacked “because of” their religion, regardless of what their religion is, that can be considered a hate crime. if someone is attacked because they are heterosexual (it does happen, though a lot less frequently than vice versa) that’s still a hate crime.
; we’d be left with killing, stealing, beating, tresspassing, vandalism, etc. just the bald offense, no worries about motive, no worries about intent, no worries about mandatory minimums (which i think are stupid, by the way), no worries about juvenile vs. adult offenders… but that’s not the system we have. with the system we have, we specify specify specify. as long as we’re specifying, crimes motivated by hatred of entire groups of people cause unique harm to those groups.
