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Author Topic: Canada files anti-homosexual propaganda under hate crimes
katharina
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But you want to punish one criminal for a crime more severely than another for the same exact crime, because the first one has it coming.

You claim it isn't the same crime, because one was committed because he hated homosexuals, but the other was committed because he hates everybody.

There isn't a single motive for a murder or a crime that is acceptable. If it provokes the person to committing the ACTION, then they are equally bad. This law makes some more equal than others.

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Caleb Varns
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quote:
This is not a productive discussion. At this point, I'd just link you the whole thread. This is going nowhere. And I'm getting the feeling you're not talking to me, but the crowd. You don't need me for that.
Again you comment on my person where it is not welcome. katharina, I've asked you SEVERAL times how making a crime more severe than another crime can possibly obstruct the system of due process. By several I mean more than a few. If you were to link me to this thread, I would find exactly as many answers to that question as I've found in it thus far.

I'm willing to grant to you that this legislation is wrong if you can show me that it does indeed take away ANYONE'S rights. I continued this discussion because I felt you would eventually give me an example that I could think about and then give an educated response to. Instead you say it's a mockery of the law and you liken it to racial profiling.

<imitation>*shrug*</imitation>

I feel like I've covered everything. I've covered why I think a hate crime is worse than a regular crime. Pod supported with statistics that there's a definite need to curtail homosexual hate crimes. I've posted over and over again about how this legislation does not interfere in any way with due process, or fairness or civil liberties. And in the end, you accuse me of attacking due process, fairness and civil liberties.

[Confused]

To a crowd and I don't care:

Somebody help me out, here. Am I nuts? Did katharina really answer my questions, and I just missed it? Because it feels to me as if she waded through each post looking for something she could contradict and just went with that while ignoring everything else.

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katharina
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Thank you, Bob. I did miss that. I don't have the internet at home, and I just scanned this morning and responded to my name.

If it helps, I only read Geoff's because so many people mentioned it after. [Razz]

----

So what happened is that sexual orientation was added to a list of things that may already increase the severity of sentence.

----

*grin* What can I say? I still don't like it, but at least it's toothless?

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Pod
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Kat:

I find this quote absolutely surreal:

quote:
It won't work, and it corrupts the system to have it in place. I don't like using the justice system for social engineering.
Do you object to the fact that the justice system is in place to deter, prevent, and if all else fails, remove those who would execute behavior deemed socially damaging? If you do object to this, then what exactly is the justice system for?

And i'll just repeat this once again, i'm not talking about categorical judgement about a variety of crime. Just because a homosexual man is robbed, doesn't make it a hate crime. Hate crimes are characterized by people who typically expound on the specific causes for their behavior, and when this happens, such events must still be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Thus, once again, what is can be seen here, is simply giving the option, if so proven, to punish those who are unrepentant, unremorseful, or believe that due to the nature of their victim, they are some how less culpable under the law, to sentence them more harshly. Why? Because these people, like a repeat murderer, are an on-going and obvious menace to society.

Once again, sex offenders are treated in this manner, do you object to their treatment?

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twinky
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You know, kat, you have yet to sum up my point of view as succinctly and correctly as I've summed up yours, though you did try once. I think you're arguing against a caricature of my view. Remember how I noted that hate crime legislation can be interpreted in the way you interpret it, but it doesn't have to be? Try harder to interpret it my way, and maybe you'll gain an understanding of where I'm coming from. I don't think you have that now.

Ted's points are also very salient.

And this:

>> So what happened is that sexual orientation was added to a list of things that may already increase the severity of sentence. <<

Is right. It doesn't get invoked all that often, because has to be patently obvious that the accused was motivated by one of the things that falls under the legislation. It's not as though every single time a gay man is murdered people go crying "hate crime!"

...and given that, I honestly don't see how your position is tenable.

[ September 19, 2003, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: twinky ]

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Túrin
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Wow. A lot of strong opinions on hate crimes. Here's mine.

If I spray paint "Go Giants!" on the side of someone's house, I am guilty of vandalism.

If I spray paint "Nigger!" on a black man's house, I am also guilty of vandalism.

Is there *anyone* who will argue that these two crimes are equivalent? Is there anyone who will argue that they should have the exact same punishment?

The latter is a greater crime. And yes, of *course* the motive matters. Being a selfish scumbag willing to deface others' property for kicks is extremely crummy. Painting a racial epithet however is *intentionally cruel*.

Anyone who does so knows it will hurt peoples' feelings. They know it will offend, possibly make afraid. The victim suffers more, and even passersby may be harmed by reading it.

The perpetrator by being willing to do that, shows greater evil than one that makes reference to a sports team. (No comments about non-Giants fans being offended please...)

I would *hope* we could all agree that torturing someone and killing them is worse than simply painlessly killing them. It's worse because even though the person is dead either way, the perp showed greater evil by demonstrating sadistic cruelty.

Spray-painting a word meant to be hurtful shows greater evil. It *should* be punished more severely, because it's a more severe crime.

How *much* more severe? That's something we have to decide.

Now, the question is, do we need special laws against cruelty? (Note first I use the word cruelty, to denote an *action* with evil intent. It is perfectly possible to hate someone and never harm them.)

I don't think we should have special laws for it. I think the Judges ought to be able to use their judgment in sentencing. (I also think judges ought to *have* good judgment, but that's another subject.)

What if I spray paint "Bald @$$60!3" on someone's house? If I know they are bald and very sensitive about it, am I not being intentionally much more hurtful than painting "Go Giants"? Will not their reputation be affected, or they will perceive that it has been? Shouldn't that be punished more severely? Maybe not *as* severely as the big N word, because that's basically the most emotion-laden epithet there is. For instance, nobody thinks "cracker" is just as bad as the n-word.

But anyway, shouldn't it be worse? Shouldn't a judge be able to use his common sense judgment and give a stiffer sentence and lecture to someone intentionally cruel, as opposed to just not giving a crap about other people?

If we have "hate crime" legislation, we only have it for certain groups of people, don't we? So the gov't decides it's bad to vandalize with anti-black messages, but anti-gay ones are okay *until* we have a special law which includes them. But the ones making fun of fat people are still just fine.

I'd rather just have it understood that hate is bad, and cruelty in crime is bad and will be punished worse. Just as a general rule. No special groups.

Now, we've been using vandalism. Let's step it up to, say, murder.

Well, since murder should be a capital crime *anyway*, I find it less than enlightening to decide if just shooting someone is less evil then shooting someone but hurting their feelings first. Sure, mental and physical torture prior to murder is worse. But since the punishment for murder should be death *anyway*, I see no point at *all* in having different sentences! The only way to do that is be more lenient to regular old murder, which seems rather stupid.

Okay, how about beating people for the fun of it? This already has an evil sadistic motive, and should be punished *extremely* severely. Depending on the circumstances, I wouldn't have a problem making it a capital crime. The horror of bashing in someone's head, not because they resisted a robbery, not because they slept with your wife, but just because you *enjoy* hurting people... I don't know that we need to keep people like that around just because their victim happened to live.

But anyway, the question is, do we need special legislation making it worse for people to beat up a black man than for beating up a long-haired hippy? Or suppose there *was* no motive for selecting that particular victim; the perp just wanted to hurt *somebody* and picked at random. Is that less bad?

I guess beating someone while acting all prejudiced against them hurts worse than a simple impersonal beating, so maybe it should be punished heavier for being crueler. But we need additional laws for this?

How about robbery? If you're white and you rob a white man, you get punished yea much, but because you're a racist in addition to being a theiving scumbag, you only select black people to rob so as not to steal from "your" people. If we punish for hate, and not cruelty, isn't it basically policing their thoughts? If they make the victim *suffer* more, either physically or mentally, then we're punishing more harshly for added *cruelty*. And I don't see why we need additional laws to do that.

Of course, this all presupposes we judge each crime on a case-by-case basis. If a higher percentage of asian people are getting robbed, because the criminals dislike the asians, should we start punishing crimes against asians more severely? Basically, we want diversity in our crime, I guess. Doesn't that just send the message to prey on other groups that aren't as protected?

I guess the theory is that there are people who aren't actually predisposed to, say, rob people, and just pick on the asians. It's the anti-asian feelings that cause them to go out and commit robbery, and that's why the asians in general are getting a dirty deal.

Okay, that's crummy, but how does harsher sentencing deter that, exactly? Or if it does, why not do it for *all* types of robbery? Remember, I'm not talking about robbery involving extra *cruelty*, merely the use of prejudice in victim selection.

I don't think legislation can reduce the hatred that is causing those crimes, if it's the hate that's causing the crimes. You have to change how people feel. If making anti-asian or anti-bald people or anti-gay crime have harsher punishments *did* work, we should just up the punishment for that crime across the board.

And we can still punish more severely for crimes where the perp is demonstrating greater evil by greater cruelty.

There. Let's see if I kill the thread with this monster post, like I've done in the past. :-)

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Kayla
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quote:
I don't like using the justice system for social engineering.
quote:
Seriously, if greater penalties deter crime, why not raise the penalty for all crimes? Don't you want to prevent all crime?

You must be anti-death penalty then, right? I mean, the death penalty isn't used for rehabilitation. It's only goal to deter the crime in the first place, but since the death penalty is not only what you consider to be social engineering, but also imposes a heavier penalty without actually deterring anything, you must be against the death penalty.

quote:
the law is creating a class of victim more needful of protection than others.
I think this is where the major difference between Kat and those who disagree with her is. Kat thinks that the legislation is treating the victims of the crime differently.

Kat, that is not the case. They are treating the perpetrator differently. They are creating a new class of criminal, not victim.

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twinky
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The class of victim is already extant.
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Bob the Lawyer
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Psst, Túrin, you seem a little confused about the law and seem to think it protects only minorities as opposed to everyone of an identifiable group.
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A Rat Named Dog
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Look, I think you could probably make a case for criminalizing people who publically advocate violence against minorities, and then tacking that additional crime onto cases where the perpetrator's action was a clear statement against a minority. You'd face some problems with disrupting free speech, but you could make the case.

The problem you can't get away from is the fact that most hate-crimes legislation punishes people not only for their actions, but for the thoughts and opinions that led to those actions. It's impossible to make that kind of judgement fair, period.

First of all, as I said before, people don't feel in control of their opinions. Everyone bases their opinions on the facts evident to them. When the evidence changes, or their perspective on it changes, people's opinions change. But it isn't a conscious, voluntary thing. No one just decides to have a different opinion because they think it will be fun, or because they find out there is a punishment for it. People believe what they think is true. How can it EVER feel fair to punish someone because of what they believe? Can they intentionally STOP believing what they do, just to please the authorities?

Are we really saying that people who believe certain things should be locked away for extra time just for having that belief? Once you start down THAT road, I hope you have some really nice brakes.

Secondly, how would you enforce this in cases where multiple motives are possible? What if an ardent racist runs over a black guy on a sidewalk while drunk? Even if you prove that it was voluntary, how can you prove that he selected his target based on race?

What if an angry homophobic man found out that his son had been molested by a gay man? He goes out and beats the gay man within an inch of his life. Did he do it because the man was gay? Or because the man molested his son? The two are intertwined — the child molester wouldn't have gone after the son at all if he weren't gay. So do you prosecute as a hate crime or not?

[by the way, as a disclaimer, this is NOT to assert that gay men are child molestors, or that child molesters are gay ... so don't even go there]

What I really can't get over, though, is the fact that this is punishing people for their beliefs. If a white man harms a black man, or if a straight man harms a gay man, my first kneejerk concern is that the perpetrator will automatically be charged with a hate crime, whether or not the crime was motivated by prejudice, and it will be virtually impossible for the perpetrator to prove otherwise, because who exactly was reading his thoughts at the time?

But even if we are very careful to apply these laws judiciously, with adequate restraint (which is unlikely, in my opinion), how do we determine who is guilty of a hate crime? What about someone who promotes bigotry for years, then commits a crime against a minority, but leaves no evidence that the crime itself was motivated by bigotry? Do we prosecute them as a hate criminal?

And if so, here's the big problem. Let's say they get ten years in prison, PLUS two because it's a hate crime. Basically, they're serving ten years for the act of harming someone, and then two years on top of that FOR ADVOCATING BIGOTRY. That's what those two years are for, right? They're for BEING A BIGOT.

If that's what we're doing, why not just round up all the bigots and put them in jail for two years right now? It will save us the trouble later.

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Kayla
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Geoff, one can be a bigot without committing a crime. However, if you choose to act upon your bigotry in a criminal way, extra punishment isn't unreasonable.

What I don't understand is why all y'all think you shouldn't legislate "thoughts." Isn't that what most religion is? Homosexuality is a sin, which is really a crime against God, no? Isn't that what the bible is? Basically a big law book that set out to legislate morality? How is this different? You can be a homosexual, you just can't act on it. Right? I don't see the difference. You can be a bigot, you just can't act on it.

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Pod
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What's this non-sense about protecting minorities? Hate-crimes are hate crimes regardless of who they're perpitrated against. They don't just protect minorities.

This point really should be emphasized since this seems to keep cropping up.

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Kayla
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Like, say, some yahoo decides to beat up a gay guy, but it turns out the guy wasn't gay. It's still a hate crime. Right?
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Kayla
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Though come to think of it, that guy should be punished three times. Once for beating someone up, once for the hate crime and a third time for just being too stupid.
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Bob the Lawyer
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You know what you do if you can't prove that he did it because of hate? You don't prosecute. 3 prosecutions in 30 years, people. This doesn't happen every day.
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Túrin
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quote:
you seem a little confused about the law and seem to think it protects only minorities as opposed to everyone of an identifiable group.
Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean? I do not understand.
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Pod
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there needs to be a :slaps you: smilie [Wink]

Turin:

The point that keeps being reiterated, is that a hate crime is when somebody is perpitrating a crime against another individual who the perpitrator believes has quality x. Doesn't matter what the quality is, doesn't matter if the quality belongs to the majority of people. If i beat you up because you have blond hair, and i tell you its because i hate people who have blond hair, then its a hate crime.

If i were to beat up asian people in berkeley california because they're asian (where asians aren't the minority), then its still a hate crime.

Once again, this is potentially open to frivolous claims (like everything else in legal systems), however, thats why we have the whole "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" thing.

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Scott R
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What happens when motivation cannot be established?

What happens when one gay man kills another gay man?

How will prosecutors establish motive?

What preventative measures will be put in place to stop prosecutors from abusing these laws?

The problem that I am having with laws like this, is that they punish MOTIVATION as well as ACTION. And that is uncomfortably close to thought policing.

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twinky
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As per statements that have already been made in this thread by various people,

>> What happens when motivation cannot be established? <<

Then the crime is prosecuted normally.

>> What happens when one gay man kills another gay man? <<

Then the crime is probably prosecuted normally, though I can imagine circumstances under which it could be a hate crime – e.g., the accused was not openly gay and hated being gay so much that he decided to start killing gay people.

>> How will prosecutors establish motive? <<

The same way they do in any other case – with evidence. No evidence, no prosecution. As has been said, this is not legislation that gets invoked often. It has to be painfully obvious what the motivation was.

>> What preventative measures will be put in place to stop prosecutors from abusing these laws? <<

Either they're already in place here or we don't need them, becuase they've been around for three decades and have not been abused. All we've done is add homosexuals to the list of minorities that falls under the legislation's jurisdiction.

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fugu13
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While motive is sometimes hard to determine, that doesn't mean it isn't easy to determine in many cases.

Many people are more than happy to make their motives clear, often by telling people, or involving their motive in the crime.

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Scott R
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Why should a motivation to kill a man because he's gay be despised more than the motivation to kill a man because he's greedy? Or rich? Or married to someone that the murderer is obsessed with?

Isn't one of the cornerstones of modern law the idea that people are punished only for their actions? Discovering motivation can be useful in determining if a crime was commited, but I am extremely uneasy in adding punishment because of motivation.

Then again, it is conceivable to modify sentences because of motivation-- for example, we feel pity and mercy for Jean Valjean at the beginning of Les Miserable, and we feel rage at the injustice of his sentence. . .

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Pod
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::grins::

Have we suggested anything differently from what you've said at the end of your post?

peopel get sentenced differently, that's it.

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Túrin
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::If i beat you up because you have blond hair, and i tell you its because i hate people who have blond hair, then its a hate crime.::

Um, okay. Then why were anti-homosexual crimes just added to Candadian law? I thought the event that sparked this thread was that certain groups of people were listed, and only just now were gay people included, and the original poster was happy that they finally were.

Does anyone have a link to the actual text of US or Canadian hate crime laws so I can read them and know just what they do and don't say?

Obviously if one of my premises (that only some classifications such as race, gender, or sexual orientation were protected) is false, it renders my subsequent argument moot. But since I was arguing *for* universal applicability, which you say we already have, then I wouldn't think anyone would have a *problem* with it. I don't see why I needed to get slapped.

::If i were to beat up asian people in berkeley california because they're asian (where asians aren't the minority), then its still a hate crime.::

Um... duh? No offense, I'm just confused because I don't see how this is connected to anything I wrote. I never use the word "minority," but it's been said in response twice. I don't get it. What do people think I'm arguing?

I argued:

1. Crimes of cruelty are worse than crimes where no cruelty takes place. (I would think hate crime law proponents would agree with this.)

2. Punishment should *not* depend on the classification of person who is on the receiving end of it, so we don't need laws listing groups of people protected by hate crime legislation and excluding others.

3. We should punish more harshly for cruelty, not hate, and the distinction is important. (I expected this to be the main point of discussion.)

I still don't know why people think I was talking about "minorities." It's not a word I use, and I actually have no idea what people mean by the word "minority" if they don't define it, either, since it seems to mean something different to everybody.

...

Okay, I did a tiny smidge of research.

"A hate crime is defined as any criminal act or attempted criminal act motivated by hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability."

That's from: http://caag.state.ca.us/cjsc/publications/hatecrimes/hc2000/preface.pdf

From the California Attorney General's website.

So, your example of hate crime against people with blond hair *is not true*, in California, at least (which is where I live). Nor fat people, short people, or bald people. So my premise appears to have been accurate: right now only certain groups of people are protected against hate crimes. (And just in case: I never said anything about the group having to be in the minority. I still don't get that one.)

So if I hate fat people and think they're disgusting, I can beat up fat people, and I can be punished only for assault. If I hate paraplegics, and beat a paraplegic because of it, I can be punished more harshly because I hate paraplegics. Not because I made anti-paraplegic comments during the beating, or did *anything* to distinguish it from the assault on a fat person. But because hate was the motive. And it only works that way for certain groups of people.

Túrin

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Scott R
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Of course there is a large difference between a loaf of bread and a man's life. . .

I don't see yet any reason behind this law. Are hate crimes really that much more prevalent than ordinary, run of the mill, apathetic crimes, that a system of deterrance has to be set up?

Not to mention that if deterrance is the goal of this program, it is bound to fail. Just as the death penalty is not a deterrent for murder, stiffening penalties for hate crimes will not make them disappear, or prompt those who might engage in them to have a change of heart.

Scott R's unwarranted venom of the day: "Hate crime legislation is the liberal's way to feel like effective policemen."

[ September 20, 2003, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Scott R ]

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twinky
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As has been said, more crimes per capita are committed against homosexuals than any other group in Canada.
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Scott R
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Will this law will deter crimes against homosexuals?

Is that the purpose of this law?

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twinky
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>> Is that the purpose of this law? <<

I'd argue that deterring at least some potential criminals is one of the principal aims of punishing crime.

Edit: On looking over this thread, it's interesting to note that almost every single person who has argued against hate crime legislation believes homosexuality is wrong. Túrin and Icarus are the exceptions.

[ September 20, 2003, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: twinky ]

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Scott R
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Hmm.

That's an interesting point, twinky. Do I object to the philosophy behind this law because I object to the homosexual lifestyle, or because I think that the law is actually unjust?

While self-introspection/examination are beautiful things, in this instance, I'm pretty sure my objection is based on the injustice of the law.

Pretty sure.

Hey, turnabout's fair play-- have you noticed that all those who support this law are in favor of homosexual unions?

:Gasp: DURN IT ALL! This law is really just a ploy by them homey-sexuals to get hitched! Them canuck's and their durn sneaky ways! Mabel, get my boom-stick, and hide Junior in the root-cellar! Ain't no tu-tu wearing dance instructor gonna git aholt 'a my boy!

[Big Grin]

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twinky
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[Big Grin]
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Túrin
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quote:
On looking over this thread, it's interesting to note that almost every single person who has argued against hate crime legislation believes homosexuality is wrong. Túrin and Icarus are the exceptions.
Oh, I believe homosexual sex (and extramarital sex, and premarital sex, and lying, and all sorts of other actions) to be immoral, I just don't see how it has anything to do with hate crime legislation.
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Ethics Gradient
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Irrelevant reference to a comment a couple of pages ago:

Just to chastise Pod and his assertions about postmodernism, the 30s and 40s are generally regarded as being part of the modernist era. In fact, the idea of "postmodernism" doesn't come in to being until the late 1950s (1956?) with certain ideas in architecture (mostly concerned with open, more vibrant and aesthetically pleasing building structures rather than the utilitarian modernist behemoths made famous by the Bauhaus [sp?] school). Postmodernism IS still a very current theory, however postmodernism is really nothing like the ridiculous caricature that most opponents paint. Very few people seriously propose that everything is equally meaningless, for example.

It is just as frustrating, IMHO, to hear "postmodernism is dead, so get a new whipping boy" as it is to hear "well you would say that, you're a postmodernist" or whatever.

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Pod
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Forgive me, English major, i stand exposed.

And you're right, i was thinking late forties, and some earlier philosophical precursers to literary postmodernism which started in the 30s.

And, actually when i come to think of it, postmodernist art is still around, however things like fluxus have certainly seen a decline in more recent years. And of course, postmodernist architecture doesn't really go away, so long as the postmodernist architects actually knew their architecture. The wexner center here at OSU would be a good example of post-modern architecture.

So, if we haven't left the post-modern era, i'd at least gander to say that it's on its way out.

So basically i'm trying to finnagle my way out of being totally wrong [Wink]

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Ethics Gradient
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[Wink]

Don't worry, Ryan was much more offensive about it... You just made a mistake. [Taunt]

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imogen
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A belated response.. I was reading this thread yesterday and found it very interesting indeed.

And then this morning on the news was the sentencing of a group of hindu fundamentalists who killled an Australian missionary and his two young sons in India a few years ago. They were killed solely because they were Christian - and the crime was, I think quite rightly, charactarised (and proscecuted as) a hate crime.

I'm pretty sure not many people would agree that murder based solely on the religion of a person is a crime elevated in its heinousness as compared to murder for revenge/greed/the 'normal' human motivations.

What I don't understand is why this kind of crime is accepted to be a hate crime, and crimes against other minority groups (such as homosexuals) are more contentious - I would see it as the same issue. Persecution based on gender/race/sexuality is wrong, and should be seen as a 'more serious' crime.

Two additional points - I know that some people have been arguing against the idea of 'hate crimes' as an elevated offence per se, not just hate crime legislation protecting homosexuals. In that sense, I would imagine those same people would think that murdering someone because they are Christian is no worse than murdering them for any other reason.

The second goes to hierarchies of crime - I know there has been some discussion as to severity of sentancing, and how we can have a more serious crime (or sentance) than murder. The reality is we already do - in international law for example, the crime of genocide is recognised as a much graver crime than murder. This is not denigrating the seriousness of murder, but acknowledging that some things are even worse.

So that's my 2 cents worth... I thought it was interesting. [Smile]

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Icarus
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quote:
What if an angry homophobic man found out that his son had been molested by a gay man? He goes out and beats the gay man within an inch of his life. Did he do it because the man was gay? Or because the man molested his son? The two are intertwined — the child molester wouldn't have gone after the son at all if he weren't gay. So do you prosecute as a hate crime or not?

[by the way, as a disclaimer, this is NOT to assert that gay men are child molestors, or that child molesters are gay ... so don't even go there]

Despite your disclaimers, I'm having a hard time interpreting this thought. Do you mean this is what's going on in the father's mind? Or that this refers to this one situation? Or are you literally saying that there is a connection here? You say you are not making an assertion here, but then I'm not sure what your point is when you say that he wouldn't have gone after the son at all if he wasn't gay. Pedophiles go after children because they are attracted to children. It has nothing to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality; it is its own thing. Whether they prefer boys or girls is actually not a function of whether or not they prefer men or women, because pedophiles who rape boys are not attracted to them as men. Pedophiles who are heterosexuals may still be attracted to boys because boys have more feminine features than girls do.

Other than that point, I agree with your post.

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Scott R
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I have no problem with filing crimes committed against Mormons, Catholics, Hindu, Muslims, etc as simply 'crimes.'
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katharina
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Same.

They do happen. Our church was fire-bombed when I was a kid - I hardly think it was chosen at random.

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