Why I Hate Hate Crimes

On April 29, the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" (whew, deep breath!) was passed in the US House of Representatives. According to civilrights.org, this bill would give the federal government jurisdiction over hate crimes in states where the current laws are deemed to be "inadequate."

I take issue with this bill on a number of different levels. First, this is a huge expansion of federal powers over states' rights. "We the people" become less and less important as more and more powers are granted to a centralized federal government.

But more importantly, the whole issue of "hate crimes" does not do much to further unbiased justice. Under a hate crime system, the action of a crime becomes less important than the motivations behind it. This has some bizarre consequences, too. For instance, if I was murdered on August 19, 2009 in cold blood, and my friend who is statistically identical to me save for the fact that she is a lesbian is also murdered on August 19, 2009 in cold blood, guess which murderer would receive the harsher sentence? That's right, my friend's. Is my friend more valuable as a human being than I? No, not at all. But because her murder was motivated by "hate," and mine was just the wild rampage of a homicidal individual, her murderer would be penalized to a greater extent.

Write your Senator and let him or her know that you do not support this bill!

Check out this link for more information.