Hate Crimes Bill Passes Senate

[panthera]

Holder says it better than I can:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "The action by Congress today
to pass this vital legislation is a milestone in helping protect Americans
from the most heinous bias-motivated violence. Hate crimes victimize not just
individuals, but entire communities. Perpetrators of hate crimes seek to deny
the humanity that we all share, regardless of the color of our skin, the God
to whom we pray, or whom we love.

"There have been nearly 80,000 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI since
I first testified before Congress in support of a hate crimes bill eleven
years ago. The legislation is named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.,
both of whom were murdered in two of the most infamous examples of
bias-motivated acts of violence, but recent tragedies like the shooting at the
Holocaust Museum demonstrate that there are still those for whom prejudice can
translate into violence. The passage of this legislation will give the Justice
Department and our state and local law enforcement partners the tools we need
to deter and prosecute these acts of violence.

"Since returning to the Justice Department, it has been one of my highest
personal priorities to ensure that this legislation finally becomes law, and I
applaud the Senate for joining the House in its vote today."

 

[rapunzel]

What is wrong with beating up on people I don't like?

How else am I going to release some of my pent up aggression? Hate is such an important part of our emotional range, just like love. If I write 'love' instead of 'hate' on my baseball bat, will that make it a love crime? What is this world coming to if people can't express their normal range of emotions anymore? All that is left now is for me to sit in a corner rocking back and forth.

rapunzel

 

[peterh770]

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But names will never hurt me.

Be careful what you think, be careful what you say;
the po-po may come haul your ass away.

 

[sudsmaster]

This legislation is about PHYSICAL ATTACKS, not about speech, or names, or words.

Buy A CLUE!

 

[jeffg]

But we already have laws against physical attacks.

Hate crime laws can have only one conceivable purpose: to punish thought as a separate crime, and punish some Americans more severely than others for the exact same crimes. Therefore the laws are a blatent violation of our 14th Amendment, and likely violate the 1st and 10th Amendments as well. But we've become a nation of victims, so it's going to be a long time before these laws are thrown out.

 

[panthera]

Goodness.

First, let's remember that christianists can still preach our death by stoning from their pulpits every Sunday or whenever their block-head sect tortures rattle-snakes and gathers money to take away the few state-based civil rights we might have.

Second, the First, Tenth and Fourteenth Amendments override any such law. Much has been made of the situation in Canada, the US is not Canada.

Third, I drive past the place Matthew Shepard was tortured and left to die regularly when I'm in the US. My mother was chased by attack dogs when she marched in the civil rights marches in Atlanta.

This bill does nothing more than to reflect that fact that some groups of people use criminal activities - such as torturing and murdering us - to advance their goals of making all Negroes, gays, transgender and Jews remember our 'place'.

Thirty Republican senators just this week voted expressly and directly against civilian contractors who have been raped and imprisoned by their employers (American contractors, American employers) having the right to bring this to an American court. The bill passed anyway.

In North Carolina, over the last few months ten women have been murdered and the police have done diddly-squat. Why? Gosh, let's play a little game here, you get one question. What is the color of their skin?

Neither the sheriff in Laramie, Wyoming nor what passes for local law-enforcement in North Carolina give a hoot about those of us who are not white-skinned, Bible-thumping, heterosexual men. This law gives the government permission to step in and force local law officials to do their jobs.

This knee-jerk assumption that somehow this bill takes away our freedoms is wrong. Try living as a gay man in Wyoming or a poor woman in Dixie and you will see just has quickly your civil rights melt away.

Hell, in Wyoming you can still be denied housing or have your lease broken, you can still be fired from your job or suspended from school simply because some christianist asshole thinks you are gay. That's all they need, we have no rights there. None. Discrimination against us is not only legal, one week before the housing act legislation put an end to it just this week, the official position of the Wyoming chamber of commerce was to tell realtors and employers directly and specifically and proactively that it is legal and OK to fire gays and not sell or lease real-estate to them.

 

[cadman]

Speaking of pulpits.....

Seriously, Panthera, do you just like to stir the pot, or what? There are so many other positive, engaging things we could be discussing around here. The "copy/paste, wait for a lash-out, respond with lengthy rebuttal" recipe has been done to death.

 

[andrewinorlando]

The "copy/paste, wait for a lash-out, respond with lengthy rebuttal" may have been done to death, but the facts still stand and we can't "wish" them away....

 

[panthera]

Well, gosh, Cadman,

After all these years, I should think the answer would be obvious: You know anything I write is going to displease you.
So, don't read it.
É voilà, problem solved.

 

[jeffg]

Keven, every bit of what you say might be true, but it doesn't make these hate crime laws any more constitutional, or any less ridiculous. These laws put juries in the absurd position of trying to figure out not only if a defendant committed a crime, but whether he/she hated their victim when they committed it.

IMO Peter is correct on this matter. This is thought policing in one of its purest forms.

 

[jeffg]

Here's one example of what I'm referring to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/nyregion/12plumb.html

 

[panthera]

Jeff,

Yes and no. Obviously, every crime of conscious violence is hateful.
Since the Supreme Court has already found the earlier hate crime acts constitutional, I am puzzled as to why adding us and the transgender and Christians should necessarily make it now un-constitutional?

You live in a civilized state. In Wyoming or Texas or the
Carolinas and many other places, there are local law enforcement practices which basically consist of letting transgender and effeminate gay men be beaten up, raped and murdered. Even RR had to intervene in Dixie back in the early '80's when all those girls were being raped and killed and the local cops didn't give a flying, um, swordfish, because they weren't white.

The hate crimes legislation has no new provision on 'thought control', the Republicans and the christianists are still free to preach their hatred. The only difference is that now, for the first time, attacking some little wisp of a guy who can't butch it up like you and I can will have consequences, even in places where they really do hate us.

Why the thought control concern on your part? I've followed this for several months across the intelligent conservative media (Douthat, WSJ) and just don't see it?

 

[peterh770]

Thanks, JeffG, for not being a smart non-victim and not falling down the politically correct slippery slope.

 

[jeffg]

Keven, you answered your own question in the first sentence. I've had the same opinion of hate crime laws since the first ones started appearing about 20 years ago.

This new federal law creates protected classes based on gender, race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. So who's left? Murder a hetero white male and you're looking at X years in jail. But murder anyone else and you may be looking at X+Y years. This is not how our system is supposed to work, and it flies directly in the face of why the 14th Amendment was written and passed.

 

[hunter]

Folks, just stop.

Yes, the christianists preach death to queers and other heathens.

But queers and other heathens often preach death to christianists.

Perhaps we should ALL be more Christian by not rising to the stereotypes of whatever group we belong to?

 

[panthera]

Peter,

one 'not' too many, methinks.

I think Obama is (ok, this is my wish) putting together a bunch of low-lying fruit into a nice little picnic basket he can lay in front of the Supreme Court, ultimately, and use to secure full civil rights for us. Hud, Social services, hate-crime, HIV+ immigration, ENDA, DADT and finally, DOMA are all going to going to have to be fought through that court, makes sense to build up a standard which can't be reasonably repealed.

What do you think?

 

[panthera]

Jeff,

Were that the sole motivation, yes. Unfortunately, the original basis for hate crime legislation remains - as we are seeing in North Carolina and as we saw with Matthew Sheppard.

In many places in the US, especially Dixie and Wyoming, local law enforcement will not apply the law equally to all and this is the only way for the feds to force compliance with the laws of the land.

I've lived in San Francisco and in Wyoming. Two different cultures. In California, all humans are entitled to civil rights and due process. In the Rocky Mountain West, only heterosexual white Republicans are automatically entitled to full constitutional protection. Dixie is even worse.

Suggest a better solution, please.

 

[panthera]

Ah, but Hunter,

Nobody is actually killing christianists.
Those ten young women in North Carolina, that poor transgender woman in Colorado recently, those bastard in Utah who arrested those two men for just kissing...

This is not about people being nasty to each other on the internet. Sadly.

 

[jeffg]

> In many places in the US, especially Dixie and Wyoming, local law enforcement will not apply the law equally to all and this is the only way for the feds to force compliance with the laws of the land. <

This federal law simply provides for additions to existing charges, it does not force enforcement of or compliance with any state laws.

As to what would force compliance, the only solutions I can think of would be far worse than the problem.