All opposition to the LGBT-inclusive federal hate crimes bill just passed by the House (Senate action is to come) isn't from right-wing crazies, although reading the LGBT media and blogs you might think so. At the libertarian-minded Reason magazine, Jacob Sullum argues:
Aside from the usual problems with hate crime laws, which punish people for their ideas by making sentences more severe when the offender harbors politically disfavored antipathies, this bill federalizes another huge swath of crimes that ought to be handled under state law, creating myriad opportunities for double jeopardy by another name. The changes would make it much easier for federal prosecutors who are displeased by an acquittal in state court to try, try again, as they did in the Rodney King and Crown Heights riot cases. They simply have to argue that the crime was committed "because of" the victim's membership in one of the listed groupsâ¦
Wendy Kaminer also made a sound civil libertarian case against such measures last year in "The Return of the Thought Police." I'm with the libertarians in opposing measures that either federalize or increase criminal penalties for acts committed with anti-gay animus; punish the crime and the degree of planning that went into it, not accompanying thoughts.
But many progressives are cheering this new expansion of federal prosecutorial power - in many cases the same voices who demonized Bush for widening federal prosecutions of alleged terror suspects. They're also lambasting critics of the bill as "bearing false witness" for suggesting that the measure will lead to the silencing of anti-gay sermonizing. I wonder if they said the same thing in Canada and Sweden. And yes, these prosecutions ultimately failed, but that doesn't mean putting pastors on trial and forcing them to defend their sermons isn't chilling.
24 Comments for “It’s a Crime”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Stephen, surely you know that the enormous difference between America on the one hand and Canada and Sweden on the other is that America has the First Amendment. It floors me that you would mention the Canadian and Swedish cases without pointing out that crucial difference.
I am skeptical of hate crime laws too, and especially of the invocation of hate-crime victims whose murderers were in fact brought to justice without the need for such a law. But as long as there are going to be such laws they should be inclusive of minorities who are significant targets of hate crimes.
posted by BobN on
Can’t you find examples of AMERICAN Baptist preachers being prosecuted for calling, say, Judaism, a “gutter religion”? Or perhaps you could locate a prominent fundamentalist governor prosecuted for coming very close to calling Islam a demonic force.
If you found examples of religious folks being punished for the APPALLING things they say about each other, I’d be more sympathetic to the suggestion that they’ll have to pay for saying mean things about us…
P.S. When supposedly intelligent folks make these arguments it just diminishes any credibility they had.
posted by Dan L on
BobN,
I rather suspect that you would have a great deal of difficulty finding American Baptist preachers saying that. American Baptists, formerly the Northern Baptists from the split over slavery, are generally reasonably moderate and are considered one of the “mainline” protestant denominations. I believe you might have in mind perhaps Southern Baptists or other churches that call themselves Baptist but do not identify with a particular denomination.
posted by Stefano A on
More “anti-liberal” bile spewed from the mouth of the intellectually bankrupt Stephen Miller, incapable of noting the difference between the US Constitution and Bill of Rights with those of Canda or Sweden (or any other nation for that matter). Time for Stephen Miller to join the Maggie’s of the world if he’s going to spew forth such wilfull ignorance and intentionally deceptive lines of comparison.
posted by Rob on
Once again Miller gets hate crimes mixed up with hate speech. Like Geert Wilders, I think that those laws should be repealed, but so long as we have those laws, they should be applied evenly. This why he stated the Koran should be banned from the netherlands as hate speech.
posted by TS on
The hate crimes concept is utterly stupid, an insincere and irrational attempt at mollification.
I don’t care if somebody kills my friend because he’s gay, because of bitterness over a former personal relationship, or to steal his wallet. That person KILLED my friend. Who cares why? That person is a murderer, and may justice be visited upon em. A crime is not somehow worse because it’s motivated by hate for some minority group. In fact, at least in that case, we get to hear some albeit twisted rationale. If a murder is carried out by a mentally ill waste of a human being with no control over es actions, that to me is even more tragic because the victim’s death will never mean anything. Or even worse by a drug addict who just wants the victim’s wallet in a desparate attempt to find their next fix.
posted by BobN on
Dan L,
I meant “American” as their nationality. Didn’t mean to tarnish the denomination.
(Actually, I was trying to give the “conservatives” on here a hint, as I assume they remember Jessie Jackson’s comment. No idea what his denomination is.)
posted by EssEm on
The Canadian Human Rights Commissions do indeed silence pastors. The whole evil apparatus is still in place there and is only used to attack “incorrect” opinions on the right. Ezra Levant is the torch-bearer for freedom there: http://ezralevant.com/2009/04/free-speech-updates.html
posted by Regan DuCasse on
The arguments tend to see ALL acts of violence as the same if the RESULT is the same.
However, the defense tend to significantly change the way in which justice is assumed for a victim.
Hate crimes have a different and specific profile.
But for the sake of argument, in the instance of violence against gay people, the victim is turned into a perpetrator responsible for his own victimization.
And in this defense, the juries, judges or even law enforcers and investigators lose interest in gathering the necessary evidence for or against that claim.
And those who have violated a gay person have gone free or had incredibly light and cursory sentences passed on them.
We are not assured that those along the chain of justice and investigation will do right.
This is all very similar to the sorts of ways blacks were treated in the Jim Crow South.
Hate SPEECH does have some protection, but not ALL speech.
We see the price paid in the blood libel against gays and the transgendered.
The terrible suicides of children because of merciless bullying.
Sometimes I DON’T have a problem with muzzling someone who is doing serious damage because of their mouths.
Especially because the speech itself is specific and is a means unto itself.
posted by Stefano A on
EssEm… “The Canadian Human Rights Commissions do indeed silence pastors.” And to avoid getting off the subject of the thread (which is US Hate Crime laws, not Canadian — or other nation’s — hate speech laws), or get into a debate about the finer points of sermons being “squelched” as opposed to advertising regulations, etc…
The Canadian case is totally irrelevant when discussing the United States and US Constitution, laws and their application in the US for US citizens.
posted by Bobby on
It is relevant to discuss what has happened in Europe and Canada where “hate speech” has become a “hate crime” with prosecution and jail time.
You saw what happened to Tancredo when he gave a speech at UNC, this isn’t an isolated case, progressives see conservative ideas as hate speech. Be it Ms. America defending traditional marriage, Coulter attacking the hypocrisy of the Jersey Girls, or Horowitz attacking reparations for slavery or affirmative action.
The left hates ideological diversity, and they’re not above using hate crime laws to persecute their ideological opponents.
posted by avee on
The difference between “hate speech” and “hate crime” vanishes quickly once prosecutions begin.
“Bad” speech that provokes “hate” against gays is then blamed for crimes targeting gays — it’s “incitement” — and presto, speech = violence.
posted by Elizabeth on
Aside from this canard that hate crime legislation will be used to go after hate speech, there are still a lot of misconceptions I think about the correctness of increasing punishment based on the thought behind a crime. But isn’t this what our justice system always does when assigning punishment? Someone who was starving and killed a man in the course of a robbery is not sentenced the same as someone who kills a man out of pure bloodlust, or someone who just was careless, not thinking at all and killed a man accidentally. While the result in each of these cases is the same–we know each of the crimes are very different, and we assign different punishments as such.
So why are hate crimes different from other crimes, and deserving of harsher punishment? Consider for a second if your house was spray painted with graffiti saying “all xxxx group should die”. If you were a member of xxxx group, such an action not only destroys your property, but would surely instill a greater sense of fear–and that fear extends to all of your neighbors who also belong to xxxx group. It is that fear that makes hate-inspired vandalism so much worse than the vandalism committed by some drunk teenagers.
Having said all of that, I’m not a huge fan of hate crimes laws–I don’t think they’re very useful in a practical sense. At the same time, if we’re going to cover other minority groups, we should cover gays, who are the most targeted group per capita.
posted by TS on
I disagree with DuCasse and Elizabeth. We do indeed have a system that tries too hard to make fine discriminations between intents/motives. The result is an extremely arbitrary, unjust sentencing system. Not only does a dumbass teen vandal get a different sentence sentence from a hateful vandal, but among a group of convicts, 10 hateful vandals and 10 dumbass teens, all the sentences, even for crimes under highly similar circumstances, will vary quite wildly.
To me, there are maybe three motive/intent mitigating circumstances. Insanity, which would be sentenced as an extremely cautious institutionalization process which does not necessarily operate on the premise that the insane person can ever recover. A mistake a reasonable person could plausibly have made under the circumstances, which is limited to civil penalties such as fining or firing. Or a failure of justice officials to act appropriately.
First time or repeat would also be taken into account. And that would be all. The rest of the trial would be about guilt or innocence.
The only need for sentence diversity is on the spectrum of mistake to recklessness. Once gross recklessness is reached, why keep making judgment calls which only enhance the impression that the system is beatable, harsh, or unfair?
My modest proposal:
Theft = heavy fining and moderate time based on how much it was worth. Yeah, that means “white collar criminals” would get life. Awesome.
Breaking in = a block time enhancement.
Assault = lots of time based on how much injury caused, intended to cause, or threatened to cause.
Murder = life.
Multiple murder = life in deliberately bad conditions, with the option of assisted suicide.
posted by CPT_Doom on
The main problem with claiming that hate crimes laws somehow will get expanded to cover speech is that there is no history to support this contention at all. Hate crimes laws covering race, ethnicity and religious lifestyle choice have existed for years, yet no one has been prosecuted, or even threatened with prosecution, for racist or religiously intolerant speech. In fact, I can call Mormonism a Satanic psuedo-Christian cult right here in this forum, and no one can arrest me.
As for the incitement issue, bit a newsflash folks – it is already a crime to incite someone to violence, for whatever reason. The difference with the hate crimes laws is the difference between the King of England saying “will someone not rid me of this priast” versus “will someone not rid me of any priest.” The second is incitement to a religiously-motivated hate crime, as so rightly explained by Elizabeth above.
It is true that we already factor intent into all of our criminal judgements. Cold-blooded and planned murder is punished far more harshly than involuntary manslaughter, yet someone is still dead by another’s hands – the issue is intent. The best example of this is terrorism, which is rightly considered one of the most heinous crimes. What is terrorism but a hate crime on a grand scale. Just as the 9/11 terrorists did not simply attack the 3,000 or so people who died, they attacked all of us, when hate crimes target a specific group, that entire group is attacked. The only rationale for increased hate crimes penalties is the increased number of victims.
Perhaps it would be better to word these laws so that specific groups are not mentioned, rather the laws would cover any criminal action (remember, before a hate crime can be claimed, a crime has to occur) that is directed at a group of individuals. However, it is my understanding that court decisions have stated such general laws are not enforceable, so the specific groups were added.
posted by Bobby on
“when hate crimes target a specific group, that entire group is attacked.”
—Really? What about black on white crime? Will that be treated as a crime against all white people? Remember the Jenna 6? Remember the outcry over those poor black racists that beat up that evil white boy?
Hate crime laws are patently unfair because they favor minorities.
Besides, if my neighbor’s house is vandalize because some teenagers where bored, why shouldn’t I feel threatened? Why shouldn’t I fear that my house might be next?
posted by BobN on
With “conservative” opposition to hate-crime laws so fierce, you’d think they’d have repealed them all when they had the chance over the last decade.
Odd…
posted by Priya Lynn on
Stephen Miller, like several here repeats the lie that hate crimes laws punish thoughts. The most certainly do not. A hate crimes law punishes the primarily the violent crime against an individual and secondarily the crime of terrorizing a community that the victim belongs to. The thoughts of the criminal are in a sense irrelevant – its the act of terrorizing the victim’s community that is the hate crime.
As well, Bobby’s claim that hate crimes favour minorities is false as well. Blacks most certainly have been convicted of hate crimes against whites when such crimes were aimed at hurting white people in general.
posted by Bobby on
Priya, there’s a world of difference between the theoretical aspects of the law and its actual practice. Remember when sodomy laws where used to ban gays from meeting together on campus?
posted by Priya Lynn on
Never heard of such a thing Bobby. Hate crimes laws have worked just fine for decades. It’ll be no different when sexual orientation is added to them.
posted by avee on
Remember when Hubert Humphrey said, “If the Civil Rights Act leads to quotas, I’ll eat my hat.” Well they did, and he didn’t. And at the time, liberals said that anyone who claimed that the Civil Rights Act would lead to quotas was either paranoid or a liar. Guess who the real liars were!
posted by John on
With respect to claims that Canada ‘doesn’t have the First Amendment,’ I would refer you to section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
“2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
…
“b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication….”
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/#libertes
posted by Bobby on
Great John, then explain why homophobes, anti-semites, racists, and other people have been persecuted by the Canadian government for their free speech?
The argument for hate crimes is that those crimes intimidate an entire group of people. That’s the argument leftwing prosecutors will make when they try to prosecute hate speech as a hate crime.
It’s just like gun registration, today they register your guns, tomorrow the government shows up to take them away. Free speech has to be protected BEFORE it needs protection because by the time they’re prosecuting hate speech it’s already too late.
posted by Hans on
The problem with the federal hate-crimes bill is double-jeopardy, not (for the most part) free speech.
As Jacob Sullum, Wendy Kaminer, and Civil Rights Commissioners like Gail Heriot note, it will allow people who have been found not guilty in state court to be reprosecuted in federal court (thanks to a loophole in Constitutional protections against double jeopardy).
Even if you like state hate crimes laws (45 states already have hate crimes laws, and the vast majority of those cover a broad array of characteristics such as sexual orientation), you should oppose the federal hate-crimes bill for that reason.
The federal hate-crimes bill (LLEHCPA) also contains such broad jurisdictional provisions that it may exceed Congress’s regulatory powers under United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) (invalidating part of the Violence Against Women Act as beyond Congress’s commerce-clause and 14th Amendment enforcement-clause powers).