Are some violent crimes more heinous than others? Is killing a person because of race, sexual orientation or religion worse, say, than murdering someone because you were drunk or he rear ended your car?
President Barack Obama recently signed into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Well, actually he passed the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, slipped onto it was the hate crimes legislation.
Now, before getting into what's wrong with the law, let's talk about what's right: Its goals are absolutely dead on. Society should protect people who are vulnerable to harassment or violence because of who they are or what they believe.
I applaud any movement and provision that protects all citizens from harm. But weakening and damaging our country is not something to be proud of. And that is exactly what this new hate crime law does.
The bill tacks on penalties to violent crimes when deemed as motivated by gender, sexual orientation or disabilities. It's the first major expansion of hate crimes legislation originally passed in 1968, targeting crimes aimed at race, color, religion and national origin.
After signing this new law, President Obama celebrated it by saying that in this nation we should "embrace our differences."
On one hand, the president is right - No one deserves to be murdered because he is gay or she is a lesbian. This nation should be safe for all Americans, period.
On the other hand - The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and religion, and hate-crime laws should not erode those freedoms.
Constitutional law is not about embracing differences. It is about providing equal and non arbitrary protection to all citizens.
Equal protection for every individual American under the law is what the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, passed after the Civil War, guarantees. That this nation takes this guarantee seriously - that there are no classes of individuals treated differently under the law.
What could it possibly mean that the penalty for the same act of violence - for murder - may be different depending on what might be perceived as the motivation?
Is it not a sign of our own pathology that we now have classified it is worse to murder a homosexual than someone who has committed adultery, even with your spouse, or someone who has insulted or robbed?
Isn't murder - murder?
Is it realistic to believe that someone capable of murder is less likely to do so if the victim is a homosexual if the penalties are greater?
Clearly the hate crime law has nothing to do with improving our law but rather with creating favored political classes.
Black on black homicides that plague our inner cities - Hate crimes?
What of the source instructing against murder and to love your neighbor as yourself? - Banned from schools and public spaces.
What seems to becoming a Godless nation, I see a mistaken identity of the disease and the cure.
Armand Nardi is the publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register. He can be contacted at: anardi@ntin.net.
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