What is a Hate Crime?

I had a good friend once, before he decided that he needed to "move on" so he could "grow more". I told him, "If you 'move on' and 'grow' too much, you might just find someday that you have no friends left." His name was Austin, and I loved him dearly. People have to find their way in life. Sometimes that may mean that they grow apart. I wish him nothing but happiness and the very best in life.

One of the arguments that I would have with Austin was the need for hate crime protections for gay people. He disagreed for the need for hate crimes. It wasn't a gay issue with Austin. He didn't feel the need for hate crimes at all, for any group, saying that all violent crimes are hate crimes.

Hate crimes are crimes that target a person or persons of a specific group. The victim of these crimes are not know by the one who commits these crimes. The impetus of the crime itself is hatred based on some perceived attribute of the victim (skin color, sexual orientation, religion, etc.). Not robbery, or anything else; just hatred.

I argued with Austin that there should be laws created specifically to target that kind of behavior, to discourage it. If you target the behavior that causes the crime in the first place and stop the crime, that would be a good thing.

I found this excellent article that defines what a crime consists of. It's one of the best definitions I've found.

An easy way to differentiate hate crimes laws from normal laws is to think of the same crime in terms of personal and impersonal motives. Murder is a good example. Murder most often happens because of personal motivations. If one comes home and finds one's husband in bed with his lover and one kills him (or the lover) such a crime is an act of passion. [...] This is why crimes of passion (such as second degree murder and manslaughter) are dealt with less harshly than premeditated killing (first degree murder).

First degree murder is another step removed; it requires the murderer to plan the crime in advance, even if that planning entails only seconds. Still, it tends to happen for personal reasons. [...] Due to this increased possibility of further crime, the penalties for first degree murder are significantly greater.

However, there is another kind of crime. If someone kills a black man for walking through a park at night because he is black, that is an impersonal crime. The person killing him doesn't know him at all, there is no way to distinguish between this black man and any other black man. This means that any other person with dark skin could trigger the same reaction. That is a hate crime. To many the answer to this is clear; there need to be harsher penalties for hate crimes in order to give people an additional deterrent. Similar to the death penalty, there is little evidence to show that it works, most likely for the reasons mentioned above, but the logic is sound. (source)

I'm honestly not sure that having hate crime laws would deter others from doing a hate crime. First of all, those who commit a hate crime probably don't stop to think that they are going to get an extra five years in prison for committing a hate crime, if they even know what a hate crime is. I just don't think they stop to analyze the situation that much. Their focus is on committing the actual crime itself.

I suppose the most valuable thing that would come out of being a protected group under the federal hate crimes law, is that statistical information on the number of hate crimes committed against gays solely based on hate would be collected. So, we would know how big a problem it is nationwide, along with statistics for individual states.

I believe hate crimes occur more than people realize. I'm just one person, and I can't tell you how many times I have been cursed at with anti-gay remarks from people who pass me on the street. I remember one time being on a lunch break from work. I had taken my car into a car wash. I finished, left the parking lot and was parked at a stop sign about to enter the road leading back to work. I had to stop for a bicyclist who was approaching. As he got close to my car, he decided to go behind my car, but just before he turned his bike to go behind, he shouted at me, "fucking faggot", and kept going as though nothing had happened. It gave me a chill to think that even though this guy didn't know me, that he would pass judgment like that. How did he know I was gay? I have no idea except I was wearing a light pink (more white than pink) dress shirt. I suppose from that that he could have assumed I was gay.

I know people like that are morons. But let's change the scenario just a bit. Let's say that I am walking home after work, and I live in the same area as work. I come upon this individual and he has a couple of friends with him. It's not hard for me imagine that with his attitude and the assumptions he made about me, that some incident would come out of this.

I think the hate crime legislation would shed light on these incidents. Maybe it wouldn't stop them, but it would at least show how big a problem it is. And I think the results would be very shocking to a lot of people.