My libertarian side disagrees with protecting certain groups of people- why should a crime be different because of intent? Shouldn’t intent be enough, regardless of what’s going on in the perpetrator’s mind?

But then, there are still bias-motivated crimes happening, so I think that while people can’t play nicely, we need special protections for some groups. And in communities where certain crimes are not going to be aggressively pursued, it is a little comforting to know that something can be done.

But… I do agree with Stephen about the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court incorporated the Bill of Rights for a reason, and no procedure has been enacted to change it, so… So, I am still on the fence.

Where Foxx comes from this stuff is considered proper in old people. The elite she grew up listening too probably wasn’t pushing multiculturalism but sterilization and racial hygiene. She is a relic of the past. People soak up the propaganda of their time and internalize it. I await the generation of nuts that have grown up listening to Fox News or MSNBC.

Sure it’s different to beat someone up than insult them. That’s why insults aren’t crimes and assault is. What I object to is that a criminal should be punished more for breaking a leg if he hates the victim’s group than for example, he is reminding someone to pay a loan shark.

I will trust that to a judge and jury to decide. But YES, if a Gay person is found guilty of attacking someone because of “anti-STRAIGHT” prejudice, he should be prosecuted just as severely as someone who was motivated by racial or religious prejudice.

People err when assuming that expanding the hate crimes statute to include sexual orientation (meaning Gay AND Straight, by the way) will “criminalize” a person’s thoughts. The current hate crimes law has been on the books since 1969, and NEVER over the past 40 years has someone been prosecuted for expressing prejudice against members of a race or a religious group. Christian pastors have been invoking Scripture against non-Christians for as long as there have been Christians, and the hate crimes statute has never been used against them.

But there is a BIG difference between expressing personal prejudice against a group, and being motivated by that prejudice to attack a person’s person or property. I don’t care if Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Sean Hannity or Lou Sheldon hurl their anti-Gay invective until the cows come home; but if someone uses Scripture as a justification for beating up someone who is Gay, that’s a different story.

Likewise when it comes to delineating between different crimes against property: There’s a big moral and ethical difference between someone who spraypaints a “tag” on a highway overpass, and someone who spraypaints swastikas on the front of a synagogue.

Until conservatives mount a concerted effort to repeal the federal hate crimes statute that has been in effect for past 40 years, I’ll continue to see their arguments against the legislation now being considered as pretty disengenuous.

In the same show, Maddow summarized the need for a law like this by pointing out that it’s not a crime against an individual but, in fact, a crime against a community.

“The idea is that the federal Justice Department can get involved in a case to help local authorities or even to take the lead on a case if need be, in prosecuting individual serious violent crimes and murders in which the victim was selected on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability – the idea that crimes like that are intended not only to hurt or murder an individual, but to terrorize an entire community, and so there is a national interest in ensuring that those crimes are solved and prosecuted, …”

This part can stand to be repeated: “…not only to hurt or murder an individual, but to terrorize an entire community…”

It also seems to me that most people in the top tiers of government use their time in their positions in order to perpetuate the system, or at least give them further tenure. They legislate for the sake of legislation. Even if this stuff passes now and isn’t used for more widespread prosecution, it sets a precedence that future legislators will exploit to pile on more laws. I have the feeling that if these pass, they’ll go the way of the drug laws.

I can only dream!!!

As someone who has watched power change hands a couple of times, this is indeed frustrating.

Each side tends to give the other the tools they need to add more links to the chains binding the American people.