Big Think

Denys Artasevych on April 3, 2008, 11:35 PM

Completlly obsurd if you ask me. The act is the crime, what motivates is should be irelevant. First how can you trully say what the motivation was? And second again hating someone is not illegal so why should it add on to the sentence. Third every violent crime is a hate crime, if i kill my boss because i hate him, and i kill a black man because i hate him, its still a violent crime based on hate how can one be seperated from the other?

Douglas Whitmore on April 5, 2008, 8:26 PM

Jamie,
Fair question dealing with how humans inconsistently label things and at times add to misunderstanding.

Skeptic44, I concur.

Mike Yinger on April 10, 2008, 5:27 PM

I agree with Skeptic44. Furthermore, whose sense of justice is served when deciding how to determine the boundary around what is hateful and why should their justice be more important than another group’s sense of justice. Justice is blind for a reason.

Jamie Tyroler on April 11, 2008, 4:37 PM

As someone who has been involved with an anti-violence group, let me give an example of what was classified as a hate crime in Kansas City, Missouri some time ago.

A lesbian couple left a neighborhood restaurant/bar about 11:30pm. While walking to their car, they held hands. A couple drove by (man driving, woman in passenger seat) and the passenger started yelling various things, such as “dyke” – often with various obscene words.

The truck drove around the block and when they came upon the lesbian couple again, they couple attacked the lesbian couple while again yelling anti-gay words.

The couple who attacked the lesbian couple appear to have been angered mainly be the lesbian couple holding hands. This wouldn’t have happened if it had been a straight couple.

Denys Artasevych on April 12, 2008, 2:16 PM

Iunderstand the concept of the “hate crime”. But i would still say the attak is a crime, weather the motivation for it was the two women holding hands, or weather its an argument with a neighbor that leads to violence is irelevant. All violence fundamentallty stems from difference of opinion so why is certain difference of opinion punished more harshly than another.