BIll for hate crimes against Gays and Lesbians is about to be voted on. How do feel about this? I feel Gays are attacked for being gay so I am in favor of this bill.
I don't like it. I don't like any of the "hate crime" legislation. It's not right to punish individuals because of their beliefs. If someone commits a crime, they should be punished only for the crime committed.
I don't think it is punishing them for their beliefs. I think hate crime addresses the motive, the way all crime legislation does. A man who attacks another man who has slapped his wife is not the same danger to the community that a man who punches a random guy on the bus for no reason. Similarly, a man who attacks another man for being gay is a greater threat to the community than the man defending his wife. Those guilty of hate crimes are prone to repeating them, and to escalating their crimes each time. It's only common sense to address this when dealing with such criminals.
I'm for it. People got a problem with gays, tough shit. Anybody who commits hate crime, against gays as well, needs their car flipped and their ass beat, while pinned under their car. Last year, during the prop 8 shit, there were teachers and gay students getting threats n' shit. Those bastards.
In the analogies you stated, one man attacked another because he was gay, and in the other case a man attacked another because the other man was attacking his wife. Of course the wife defender would be considered less dangerous in that situation because he was defending his wife. If he had attacked the man because he owed him money, all things being equal, I would consider him just as dangerous as the gay basher. Juries should look at motive when considering cases, but the sentences shouldn't be harsher just because the vicitm is a minority.
??? Find the law which states that a sentence will be given additional weight by virtue of it being committed against a "minority?"
What hate crimes legislation does is take into account egregious aspects of crimes that are already deemed felonies or misdemeanors. Why? Because such crimes victimize more than individual targets but entire communities as well.
What the hell do you think a hate crime statute does? It gives extra weight to the sentence if the victim was attacked because of their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Not all victims of hate crimes are "minorities" and there are no laws that add weight based upon such a designation.
You right about not all of the vicitms being minorities. If there is no added weight to the sentence, then what is the point of having a hate crime statute in the first place?
Hate crime laws are designed to protect the community from a growing threat. We consider motive all the time in these things. Hate is just one more motive. Different motives often lead to different likelihood of repeat crimes. You gave the example of a man who commits assault because he's owed money. If he's doing that for the first time, because he's broke and mentally he just snapped, no court is going to treat him the same as a loan shark, and they shouldn't treat him the same as someone who committed assault because he believed his victim to be less human. Hate criminals tend to see the objects of their hate as disposable. This makes them dangerous, you see, because it removes a lot of the mental blocks against things like murder. People complain all the time when mass shootings and other horrifying crimes occur, and we all wonder how these things happen, and why the bad guys don't get caught sooner. We can't protect ourselves, however, if we don't take someone's state of mind into account. Saty's right, as well. If high school kids knock over a mailbox in the middle of the night, they've committed vandalism. It's gonna suck to be the owner of that mailbox in the morning. If other high school kids paint a swastika on the front of someone's house in a Jewish community, they have also committed vandalism. But these are entirely different crimes. Whereas the owner of the mailbox is annoyed, and out the cost of the mailbox & the time to replace it, the entire community surrounding the house with the swastika has been affected, and probably are far more upset about it than they would be if each of their mailboxes had been destroyed. Both crimes are vandalism. Treating them both the same, however, is ridiculous.
Of course there is added wight to the sentence. The judge doesn't only apply the according law for a particular crime but also individualizes the punishment. Every law (penal ones included) includes in the last articles the punisment that can go from easy ones, that include the possibility to reprieve, to harsher ones, for recidivist, cruelty added to the crime, or hate crime - and it's the judge's job to decide what applies in that particular case.
Now I see I've received some bad rap for my post, apparently I'm "horrible" and "racist" - but why for this particular post? I was just trying to explain how the law sistem works, why would anyone get offended over this :smt102 ?
Well I don't see anything wrong with this legislation. There obviously must be a call for it, I don't think it's fair if someone gets attacked for being gay that it's just termed as an assualt, because it's not just assualt. Being convicted of hate crime instead of a random violence thing, would maybe help Police enforcement in the future. It brings a whole new angle on the action that may or may not need to be taken, if you encounter that felon again. Anything to protect people or at least make these crimes more appropriately punished is a good thing.
Hate crimes were never designed to punish anybody's "thoughts", they are as the name suggests, applied on a case-by-case basis for actions motivated by bigotry and hatred based on a person's characteristics such as race, religion, sexual orientation etc. It's rather annoying when conservatives use that tired argument, despite the intellectual dishonesty and flaw of it.
