Congress is currently considering the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act.
On the face of it, hurting someone for being gay/black/left-handed/whatever is a terrible thing, so it should be illegal.
But hurting people is already covered by other laws. And should beating someone up for being gay be considered a worse crime than beating up a random person on the street? It doesn't seem so to me. Yes, motive comes into play during criminal proceedings, but usually it's to determine things like whether the defendant is guilty of murder or merely manslaughter. But being a homophobe isn't a crime. Just look at Fred Phelps. So why should a crime motivated by bigotry be worse than the same crime, committed for some other reason?
More after the jump.
The Human Rights Campaign presents a possible answer:
A hate crime occurs when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of who the victim is. Hate crimes rend the fabric of our society and fragment communities because they target an entire community or group of people, not just the individual victim.
In other words, the people who killed Matthew Shepard commited two offenses: one against Shepard, obviously; but also a threat to the gay community: "Look out, homos: you're next!"
But that, too, would seem to be covered by other laws. If someone killed a stockbroker — specifically sought out a finance worker because he wanted to punish someone for the economic meltdown — should that be prosecuted the same way as a hate crime? In both cases, a person has been harmed, and a class of people has been threatened.
In fact, didn't AIG have to take down the signs on some of its offices because its employees were being threatened by people angry over the bailout? So why limit this sort of legislation to those groups that have been discriminated against andharassed in the past?
The Matthew Shepard act has some other provisions:
The Act provides the DOJ with the ability to aid state and local jurisdictions either by lending assistance or, where local authorities are unwilling or unable to act, by taking the lead in investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated, violent crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The LLEHCPA also makes grants available to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers or assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated crimes.
Why is this necessary?:
The Laramie, Wyoming Sheriff's Office had to furlough five deputies in order to cover the more than $150,000 that it cost to investigate Matthew Shepard's murder. Yet when Jasper, Texas investigated the lynching of James Byrd, Jr., it received $284,000 in federal funds because Byrd's murder was motivated by race, rather than sexual orientation.
(via Human Rights First and Think Progress)
Providing federal assistance to state and local police departments that don't have the resources to investigate a crime seems like a good idea. But the Shepard Act seems to be adding more special cases when a more general solution is needed.
The problem isn't that that the law addresses one unfairly-despised minority and not another. The problem is cops not having the money and manpower to do a good job and bring those responsible to justice. If someone shoots up a post office in Smalltown, Indiana, and the Sheriff's department can't conduct a proper investigation, will they be denied federal assistance because no one thought to include postal workers in this bill?
Maybe I'm wrong, but ultimately the Shepard bill seems to be trying to solve real problems the wrong way. It's not that I don't think hurting and threatening gays should be a crime. I just think that it shouldn't be limited to any one minority or handful of minorities; that it's just as bad to hurt and threaten anyone.
And if local police departments can't bring criminals to justice because they lack the resources to investigate properly, by all means, let's help them. But let's not do this in a hate-crime bill simply because the last time this problem came up, it involved a hate crime.