Hates Crime Bill Passed By Congress - Awaits Obama's Signature

What I dont get is, its a crime to assult anyone for ANY reason.

Americas laws are just stupid.

 

There are crimes and there are hate crimes.

 

Having hate crime laws is an effort to punish, more severely, assaults that are caused by hate. Most hate crime laws encompass attacks based on race, religion, or, now, sexuality. This is, in theory, a way to deter such crimes by stiffer punishments than just a normal assault.

This is because a "normal" assault is usually just a misunderstanding or argument gone too far. Assaults done in hate are based on deep seated misconceptions or prejudices in the assailants and are often not directed towards the victim for any other reason than they are Jewish, black, or gay.

 

so? what makes them better? why draw attention to the reason you are attacked why should that be a reason for a more severe a punishment? why because somebody was attacked because they are gay more serious than someone who was just attacked?

with hate crimes you just end up on focusing on peoples differences and you get away from the attack and people say why did he attack him...because he was gay it becomes a reason....it trys to make teh act understandable...and then people try to add morality to the madness ..

hate crimes dont help.

if you want a good example of this south park did it very well..cartman hit token with a stone he was arrested for a hate crime tehy said he did it because token was black he said no i hit him because i dont liek him ...they said that makes it a hate crime...but cartman said it had nothign to do with his race....see? if you make somthign a hate crime your going to label attacks as hate of something other than the hate of the act itself...


im even confuseing myself now...stupid hate crime act things >.> cant they jsut say attacking anyone is wrong and be done with it. oh wait we allready have that...>.>

ok focus on more important things..

 

Hate Crimes are important not to protect the individual who is getting attacked, because like you said attacking someone is a crime anyways, but to protect the entire group the victim belongs to.

Its similar to having a "bait car" program like the one we have in my province. In high car break in areas the police set up baited cars that when broken into have gps trackers and video cameras inside to catch the criminals in the act. Its not so much about catching the odd criminal however, its more that it installs a system of fear in anyone who is thinking about breaking into a car. They dont KNOW if the car will be baited or not, and that is enough to stop alot of people.

Hate Crimes are supposed to create a system that protects the minorities from being singled out. Every time someone is clearly and violently attacked for no reason other than being gay it sends a message to the entire community - Watch out, we are coming for you next. Why? because your gay and thats enough for us to beat you to death.

Just take a look at this thread about a violent hate crime: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28648&highlight=suspect

Thats one PRIME example why we need laws that make cases like this more severe than a normal assault. Beating someone up to send a message of fear into that minorities community is wrong wrong wrong.

 

how does a hate crime stop minoritys beeing singled out ?????? i jsut dont get it im sorry


the hate crime jsut puts emphasis on a reason for a crime not the crime...

and cops here set up cars with laptops and such on teh front seat and wait for someone to go for it...it isnt entrapment as they choose to steal it...but some may think nothign some may want to but think no and some may just do it...

scareing peopel into submission doesent help as people may not attack but the feeling and hate is still there... and many who attack wouldent care what the attack was classed as as tehy would jstu make sure to do a good enough job they would never be recognised...aka killing the victim...

i must be missing somthing and i feel like a total idiot but i jsut cant see how hate crime legislation helps

if i was attacked then i would want to know why and if it was hate i know that and the officer would know that but i dont want some special law seperateing me from everyone else...

but like everything else im wrong so sorry

 

i dont care how they do it, just so long as there are laws in place to protect EVERYONE, for any reason.

 

The unfortunate thing about this Bill in my opinino, is that it's going to clash with a lot of the southern states (that have hate towards LGBT moreso). And what happens when law enforcement are called against hate crimes and they themselves are homophobic?? I... just hope it works and people start realizing the horrors of hate crime in the US.

O Canada...

 

Adam, other than being gay are you in a minority group? *and i don't mean to sound offensive, but it MIGHT come off that way so i'm apologizing now* but my family is VERY diverse. my mother is korean and my father is white, one of my uncles is puerto-rican and disabled; many of my family members are of minority groups. in the 90's my mother and brother were attacked by dot-busters in hoboken. my brother was two years old. what motivates people to harm a two year old? i feel that hate crimes aren't necessarily worse than a regular assault, but people shouldn't get off "because they had a reason." sure, i had a reason for punching the kid in second grade, but that doesn't make it right in any way, shape, or form. passing this law will hopefully make it so that people will be deterred from committing hate crimes, simply for the fear of punishment.

 

People get beat up for taking to long at an ATM here.
I think that the charge of something like that should be less than if some one is beat because they're gay or a ginger.

 

part of me feels it should jstu be the same, part of me feels such an attack is trivial..but part of me feels tehy should be harshly treated legally as the needlessness of the attack...the sheer frustration as your mind cant get round why.

 

Actually thats WHY this bill is important. Right now each state deals with LGBT hate crimes in its own way. This is a federal bill that lets the federal government step in places like some southern states without protections against hate crimes. Its nation wide, thats why its so important.

And Hate Crime laws ARE important. They DO help the entire minority. Its attacks like the one i linked before that need to be treated as *more* than just a crime. This is from the Wikipedia on Hate Crimes:

From a psychological standpoint, hate crimes may produce devastating consequences. A manual issued by the Attorney-General of the Province of Ontario in Canada lists the following consequences:

effects on people – psychological and affective disturbances; repercussion on the victim's identity and self-esteem; both reinforced by the degree of violence of a hate crime, usually stronger than that of a common one.

effect on the targeted group – generalized terror in the group from which the victim belongs, inspiring feelings of vulnerability over the other members, who could be the next victims.

effect on other vulnerable groups – ominous effects over minoritarian groups or over groups that identify themselves with the targeted one, especially when the referred hate is based on an ideology or doctrine that preaches simultaneously against several groups.

effect on society as a whole – the stimulation of divisions in society, which would be an abomination against concepts like harmony and equality in a multicultural society.

 

To add what Greggers said, I myself, even on the east coast, am afraid of hate crimes just because I'm gay. And this is in the stereotypical gay friendly zone of the U.S. I know it sounds stupid but I would be afraid to be out and gay in the South.

Does that make sense Adam? With malicious intent it DOES become much worse a crime.

 

Is this the same hate crime bill that was criticized for not defining sexual orientation, and therefore including a whole bunch of 'orientations' that are in today's society generally considered fetishes or kinks rather than orientations?

 

South park made a great episode about hate crimes, asserting that the laws in place which target people who harass, molest, assault and murder others are enough to deter the crimes being comitted in the first place.

It's very rare for me to disagree conceptually with trey parker and matt stone, but i believe that legislation to further punish those who attack others on the basis of their colour, creed, sexual orientation etc.... should be subject to more severe penalties. Trey parker and matt stone see such legislation as lending weight to the sentiment that people of different colour, creed or sexual orientation are actually fundamentally recipient of different rights, and that hate crime laws simply perpetuate the perceived differences in such groups. I tend to think that the harsher penalties applied to criminals such as the animals described by the OP in this thread (those who killed the two people for whom this bill is named after) are a poignant message to those out there under the influence of bigotry. Such intolerant ideas are not to be tolerated, and in fact will be punished further if it can be proven that these intolerant ideas were the driving force or a contributing factor toward the act of a vindictive crime.

 

My thoughts exactly!

Because you hate a race and bash a black person up, why should you be treated any differently to a person that bashes someone up just because they are wearing a shirt from a different football team than you?

 

I could ask the same question: Why are murder and manslaughter regarded as separate crimes, since both result in death by violence?

 

In our forensic Psychology class, hate crime is described as an attack to instill fear into a community. Like terroism but only focused on a certain group of people not a whole population. Hate crimes are a subject that take a lot of evidence to prove and sentence someone for. In other words you can say something was a hate crime but do you have the proof to prove it? Law is a barrrier to protect citizens from themselves and others in order to have a society of peace. An assult is only on one person, a hate crime is an attack on the whole community like spraying "go home faggot (Nig)" outside someone's wall. Not only is it vandalizim but the target is someone of a community who would find that offensive and would be frightend to live free while some communites wouldn't care at all and just call it vandalism.

 

indeed. this in my view is the strongest argument against the legislation.