Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bababooyee
It may not be a "hate crime" as you define it, but I can promise you that some DA somewhere would prosecute it as such. And that is a risk when it comes to the whole idea of hate crimes...instead of prosecuting the criminal act, you are also getting into, at best, inferring how an accused thinks about some groups and adding additional punishment for how one thinks. And once we start policing thoughts...I'm short on time, but I am sure you see where I am going here.
|
Of course I see where you're coming from. The run-up to the vote has been interesting to watch because I've been following it and what both sides have been saying about it.
I think that it speaks to your earlier post about the spirit of fairness and how other laws are already on the books. Of course there is always the potential that these laws will get interpreted very loosely by a DA, but there is the potential that they will get loosely interpreted when regarding race and religion as well, which is why I think your earlier post was very important. If there are no hate crime laws at all, that is very much one thing -- but if they continue to exist to protect certain subsets of the population, then I see no reason why they should not also protect a group who accounts for ~16% of all crimes that are already considered hate crimes (at the state level in states that already have these statutes on the books).
I just find it disingenuous that there are so many groups who are already covered by these laws that have people who say "all crimes are hate crimes," but do nothing to get their existing protections scrapped from the books. Those sorts of actions are what make proponents of this bill see those who vote against it and the president who veto it as homophobes or bigots -- because they are denying protection to a group who is very much attacked in the United States based on who they are, while they are enjoying protection from attacks based on who
they are. Something doesn't add up there, and if it's not about homophobia or bigotry then what is it as long as we have other existing protected subsets on the books?