Kathleen Parker laments that hate crimes legislation has become associated with hate crimes. (WaPo)

[jefferson_dem]

:wtf:

Hate and a Question of Rights

By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, May 3, 2009

Once a cause such as hate-crimes legislation becomes associated with something as emotionally devastating as the savage murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998, it becomes difficult to question the merits of the issue.

That is one lamentable fact.

Another is that too often those articulating the merits, or lack thereof, make many of us wish we could switch planets.

Witness Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who, in recently questioning the need to extend federal hate-crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, managed to make any further debate nearly untenable.

Who wants to join forces with someone who would use the word "hoax" in regard to Matthew Shepard's murder "that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills"?

This was not one of the GOP's brighter moments in a field lately dim with low lights.

What Foxx meant, of course, was that those advocating expansion of hate-speech protections to include sexual orientation often cite Shepard's case as justification.

Hate as a motivation is a relatively easy case to make in Shepard's horrific murder. A 21-year-old freshman at the University of Wyoming, he was picked up in a bar by two monsters posing as gay men, who lured him outside to rob him. They then beat him so severely that he died of his injuries.

<SNIP>

As an operating principle, meanwhile, it seems wiser to hear and see the haters rather than criminalize their thoughts and banish them to the underground where their demons can fester and where no law can breach their purpose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050102827_pf.html

[ellie]

1. Sweet Jesus she is stupid.

[AllentownJake]

2. The reason Hate Crimes legislation is associated with Hate Crimes

Is because Hate Crimes legislation is meant to target the perpetrators of hate crimes.

If you need evidence of the need for Federal Hate Crimes legislation, look to that immigrant killed in Shenandoah, PA whose assailants screamed epithets at him before beating him to death and had a jury nullify the murder.

[Supersedeas]

4. the hate part of hate crimes apparently is a freedom of speech/thought/association for the hate

mongers in the press, radio and Media in general.

[Aloha Spirit]

3. That last sentence

couldn't have been any stupider.
thanks for posting,
In general, I agree that we should be able to think beyond our outrage and discuss the merit of things, particularly when it comes to rights of criminals.
The idea that including sexual orientation and gender as hat crimes would prevent hate criminals from revealing their motivations or that it would motivate them to commit hate crimes more secretly or whatever.... well, it's outrageous that she didn't see the need to defend that claim.