Those are good points. I too have complicated feelings about hate crimes penalty enhancements (I am definitely in favor of tracking).

And police and legislators also share those concerns. As Priya Lynn noted, though, a hate crime is not when a straight person commits a crime against a gay person. Rather, its when commits the crime or picks the victim because he’s gay.

I’m not sure that the line is drawn exactly where Priya Lynn illustrates (Joe is a fag might be enough). But she’s correct that the action has to be against Joe’s orientation and not his disrespect for Bob’s mother.

And, as in all criminal prosecution, there is no presumption of hate crime. Bob doesn’t have to prove that he did not act out of hate. Rather, the prosecution must prove he did. (At least in the US and, I believe, Canada. In Great Britain the laws are quite different).

In your example I doubt painting “joe is a fag” would cross the bar in order to be considered a hate crime. It would have to be something like “fags not welcome in our town”, “Queers must leave”, something that sends the message that the entire community is under attack, not just a given individual. The difference between that and painting “Joe is an a-hole” is that the latter only attacks an individual and isn’t an attempt to terrorize a community which is what a hate crime law punishes.

Or, let’s say Joe is openly gay and Bob has religious objections to homosexuality. One night Bob and Joe run into each other on the sidewalk and Bob beats up Joe. People assume that Bob beat up Joe because Joe’s gay, but in reality Bob was willing to live and let live until Joe insulted Bob’s mother. If everyone knows Joe is gay and everyone knows Bob thinks being gay is a sin, how the heck is Bob ever going to prove that Joe’s sexuality has nothing to do with why he beat him up?

I had a paragraph for Prya Lynn, but Andrew made my point more succinctly when he asked why Prya bothered. But Regan and Gwhiz gave me good counter-point food for thought, my thanks.
I have agreed and disagreed with Regan, but s/he strikes me as a sincere, well informed and reasonable person every time.

Agreed — a sticker doesn’t solve the problem. Gays with Guns bucks the stereotype of weak men that some have. It’s a small gesture, but it works for me personally.

I dislike GoProud because they define themselves by who they aren’t. They seem more interested in making neocons accept them as pets. It’s all very Uncle Tom and toxic. That said, just because a bunch of idiots think something is true doesn’t innately make that thing wrong – ideas needs to be judged on their own merits.

People can demand that you cower all they want. Whether or not you choose to do so is up to you. The request isn’t criminal.

When the sole difference in prosecuting two identical acts is the beliefs of the person committing them, then yes, you actually have legislated minds.

You equate HC’s with intent. Beliefs are not the same as intent, but yes, they’re cousins. Intent speaks to whether a person did something on purpose or not, and that matters. Intent alone is criminal – attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder – which can be predicated solely on intent – are criminal acts.

Where I agree with you: Beliefs can prove intent. You can’t reasonably argue “gay panic” as a murder defense if you have an anti-gay blog or have a history of making anti-gay statements – you had an agenda, you acted with intent — and there’s your jump to felony or first degree without requiring a test of whether the bias is government-approved or not.

But criminalizing bias requires us to determine “bias against whom”? And now the government is in the business of deciding what kinds of bias are permissible, and what kinds aren’t.

If we go further with the parallel to intent (admittedly, this is going out on a limb)… if we criminalize bias as we do intent, then the bias alone becomes sufficient — and now we have a free speech test.

I don’t believe we need the law to create a category of who it’s illegal to hate. On top of that, we still leave people out. Remember how long we went without being included in HCLs? When do we re-categorize rape as a hate crime (which seems pretty logical to me)? When do we start protecting the disabled, the homeless, or very short people, who are targeted for violence, as a group, for obvious reasons?

In short – who gets to decide who’s in and who’s out? Who’s cool and who’s disenfranchised? You? Me? Really?

And in the meantime, you’ve let society take one more nibble out of the 1st Amendment. You’ve traded a freedom for security (we hope), or maybe just societal respect (good luck) – which is something that we’ll never earn by playing the victim and trying to force others not to hate us.

I love the Ben Franklin quote: Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither, and will lose both. But like most of the rest, that’s a belief, not a fact.

Like I said, I disagree with you, but I respect you for disagreeing with me, for being coherent, and for arguing your issues, not launching ad hominem attacks.

Happily, I’m not it. Sorry to rain on your parade, but, judging from the fact that you responded to me again (I caught my name at the beginning of your post), I know that’s got to hurt.

I assume you’re also NoxiousNan? Hysterical. I won’t be reading any more of those, either. Congratulations, though, on finding a forum for whatever it is you think you’re doing.

There is no point where any bit of legislation I’ve ever read suggests a person cannot hate gay people, or black people or jews or the muslims until the cows come home. It does however stress that those who burn crosses in people’s lawns, hang nooses from trees and do things like the above can’t hide behind freedom of speech or religion while inflicting damage and resorting to violence. (Intimidation and vandalism aren’t “rights” to my mind in the first place)