US Senate adds gays to hate crime legislation

[Martinus]

If we consider that gay people make up between 5 and 10% of the population

Try again.

We had this conversation in a previous thread.  5-10% is a reasonable estimate.  I note that the self-identifying percentage in exit polls in the US has been 4% for 3 Presidential cycles.  Considering that gays willing to self-identify are usually younger, and that younger people vote less often than older people, a 5-10% range is not unreasonable.

It is unreasonable, since the max upper range is 5%, and not the lower end of the range.

Well if we go with your 2% number, rather than 5-10%, it shows that a GLBT person is even more likely to be targeted with violence than I assumed, no?

So thanks for showing that hate crime legislation is even more necessary.

No problem.

I support hate crime legislation, and support including gays in that legislation. 

Ok.

[Admiral Yi]

I fail to see why Arrakis U coeds deserve special protection.

They have as much right as New Zealanders do.

[Scipio]

Lots of GOP regulars are opposed to hate crimes period.  As are lots of civil libertarians.

I acknowledge that principle; I disagree with it, but dont' see it as a big issue one way or another. But the current talking point of the GOP in Congress is that they are okay with hate crimes for "immutable characteristics" like race and religion, but not for sexual orientation.

Last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner objected to House passage of a bill that would expand hate crime laws and make it a federal crime to assault people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

"All violent crimes should be prosecuted vigorously, no matter what the circumstance," he said. "The Democrats' 'thought crimes' legislation, however, places a higher value on some lives than others. Republicans believe that all lives are created equal, and should be defended with equal vigilance."

Based on that statement, CBSNews.com contacted Boehner's office to find out if the minority leader opposes all hate crimes legislation. The law as it now stands offers protections based on race, color, religion and national origin.

In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics."

It should be noted that the current law does not include gender, though the expanded legislation would cover gender as well as sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

"He does not support adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes," Smith continued.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/13/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5381671.shtml

It is true that some Republican Congressmen do oppose all hate crimes, but that's not my real objection.

Homos are apparently a discrete and insular minority, so to the extent that hate crimes laws are okay (which of course they are not, but whatevs) go ahead and include the pillowbiters as well.

[Scipio]

Do we add the very young? the old? handicapped people? rich people? homeless people?  All these groups are targeted for who and what they represent. So, where do you stop?

How about increasing the penalty if the primary motivation for the attack is a character of the victim, and not something like material gain?

So if I think some coked up methhead is a piece of shit, it's worse to curb him than it is to curb someone I respect?

[Barrister]

Do we add the very young? the old? handicapped people? rich people? homeless people?  All these groups are targeted for who and what they represent. So, where do you stop?

How about increasing the penalty if the primary motivation for the attack is a character of the victim, and not something like material gain?

So if I think some coked up methhead is a piece of shit, it's worse to curb him than it is to curb someone I respect?

It's worse to curb a methhead for the sole fact that he is a methhead, then it is to curb someone you have some real or imagined dispute with.

[ulmont]

As you can see we make it a factor to be considered on sentencing, not a whole separate crime.  I don't get why you would do that.

We actually have that too, since 1994:

SEC. 280003. DIRECTION TO UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION REGARDING SENTENCING ENHANCEMENTS FOR HATE CRIMES.

      (a) DEFINITION- In this section, `hate crime' means a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.

      (b) SENTENCING ENHANCEMENT- Pursuant to section 994 of title 28, United States Code, the United States Sentencing Commission shall promulgate guidelines or amend existing guidelines to provide sentencing enhancements of not less than 3 offense levels for offenses that the finder of fact at trial determines beyond a reasonable doubt are hate crimes. In carrying out this section, the United States Sentencing Commission shall ensure that there is reasonable consistency with other guidelines, avoid duplicative punishments for substantially the same offense, and take into account any mitigating circumstances that might justify exceptions.

The reason for the specific law is that there's not a general assault / murder federal statute.

[Scipio]

Do we add the very young? the old? handicapped people? rich people? homeless people?  All these groups are targeted for who and what they represent. So, where do you stop?

How about increasing the penalty if the primary motivation for the attack is a character of the victim, and not something like material gain?

So if I think some coked up methhead is a piece of shit, it's worse to curb him than it is to curb someone I respect?

It's worse to curb a methhead for the sole fact that he is a methhead, then it is to curb someone you have some real or imagined dispute with.

I don't think it should be a crime to curb a methhead.

[Faeelin]

So if I think some coked up methhead is a piece of shit, it's worse to curb him than it is to curb someone I respect?

Depends on why you beat the crap out of them, obviously.

[The Minsky Moment]

Hey, it protects heterosexuals against attacks based on sexual orientation too.

It won't work. When a group of homosexuals try to beat up a heterosexual bodybuilder  . . .

Wait a sec . . . there are heterosexual bodybuilders?

[Scipio]

So if I think some coked up methhead is a piece of shit, it's worse to curb him than it is to curb someone I respect?

Depends on why you beat the crap out of them, obviously.

Because I hate methheads.  Duh.

[Ed Anger]

I don't think it should be a crime to curb a methhead.

I'd vote for that.

[Neil]

So to sum it up:  Not killing Martinus is a hate crime.

[Martinus]

Homos are apparently a discrete and insular minority, so to the extent that hate crimes laws are okay (which of course they are not, but whatevs) go ahead and include the pillowbiters as well.

Some of these bitches can't keep their mouth shut.

[Scipio]

Homos are apparently a discrete and insular minority, so to the extent that hate crimes laws are okay (which of course they are not, but whatevs) go ahead and include the pillowbiters as well.

Some of these bitches can't keep their mouth shut.

Let me help you with that.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discrete

This account shows us that Justice Stone's language is entirely apt: Prejudice against "discrete and insular minorities" is a "special condition" that prevents democratic procedures from moving us toward a more democratic culture. However, the condition is not "special" because it is "exceptional"-- because democracies normally do not feature status hierarchies. Indeed, democratic governments almost always exist against the backdrop of some forms of unjust status hierarchy. The problem has always been how to vindicate democracy in a society whose social organization is in important respects opposed to democratic culture. The condition Stone speaks of is "special" because it is a case where democratic procedures cannot be expected eventually to lead to a more democratic form of social organization. Here the zero-sum game of status politics works democracy into a rut, using the power of majorities to preserve unjust status hierarchies that they rightly see are in their interest to retain.

"Discreteness" and "insularity" are problematic terms. Neither term is synonymous with immutability. One might think the point is to protect "unpopular" groups. Yet political unpopularity is not the same thing as low social status in a status hierarchy. Rich people, for example, are often politically unpopular, but they do not have low social status. Quite the contrary: They are unpopular because they have high social status. Most people want to be rich even though they know that the rich are envied and resented; but most nonblacks do not want to be black. That is the difference between merely unpopular groups and groups on the bottom of a social hierarchy.

The language of "discrete and insular minorities" points, however awkwardly, toward the reality of status hierarchy and status competition in democratic societies. The metaphors of "discreteness" and "insularity" describe features of particularly egregious kinds of status hierarchies. They are inadequate metaphors because they describe special cases of more general phenomena. Both terms really refer to different forms of division and distinction through which status hierarchies are maintained and reproduced.(185)

Why emphasize this interpretation? The paradigmatic case of a "discrete and insular minority" in Stone's footnote surely must have been African Americans. Yet neither metaphor really applies to the paradigmatic case. Take discreteness: African Americans do not have one set of skin colors, or one set of facial features. Their color varies from dark to light; some can hardly be distinguished from whites, Hispanics, or Asian Americans. Nor are African Americans always "insular" in a geographical sense. There are now many racially segregated communities in the United States. But they were not always thus, particularly in the Jim Crow South.(186) Indeed, during the height of slavery, blacks were clearly not geographically isolated; they lived alongside whites. They were simply subordinate to them in all respects. A similar point can be made about women. Women are not geographically isolated from men but live with them as wives, daughters, and sisters.

We can make better sense of these metaphors if we reimagine them in terms of status hierarchies. Discreteness and insularity are metaphors of division that describe, albeit from a limited perspective, certain features of particularly egregious status hierarchies. "Discreteness," for example, really concerns the cultural categories that distinguish groups. In a status hierarchy, cultural markers--including dress, language, appearance, behavior, systems of belief, styles of life, or even so-called immutable characteristics--demarcate members of status groups and organize them into hierarchies. "Discreteness" refers to what distinguishes people into groups so that stratification can proceed. Yet the metaphor is also partly misleading because this semiotic organization can exist either in binary categories or along a continuum. For example, it is possible both for whites to have higher social status than blacks, and for lighter-skinned blacks to have higher social status than darker-skinned blacks. Discrimination against darker-skinned blacks by lighter-skinned blacks should not be constitutionally unprotected simply because there is no bright line that separates them.(187)

[DontSayBanana]

I get that logic.  The question is not whether or not there should be hate crime legislation, there already is.  If there is going to be something called hate crime legislation I do not see why homosexuals should not be included.  I also fail to see why judges and juries cannot subjectively give out harsher sentences for hate crimes on their own without a federal law but that is neither here nor there.

Has anybody seen the latest sentencing guidelines for those crimes?  Do judges get a lot of leeway in meting out punishment for those charges or could this also be a power squabble between Congress and USDOJ?